


Fated: Season 5

by ddixons_angel



Series: Fated [5]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Walking Dead Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26046835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddixons_angel/pseuds/ddixons_angel
Summary: On the road again, Gloria Rhee and her family try to survive the hardships of the apocalypse while trying to find a safe haven.Follows the main storyline of Season 5 of The Walking Dead.**This is Part 5 of my Fated Series, please read the previous parts if you haven't already! ^^
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Fated [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828717
Comments: 24
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Terminus was a complete bust. The place was a self proclaimed sanctuary but it was no sanctuary at all. It was hell for anyone who fell into their trap. The people there, no, the monsters there put on a facade to lure desperate people in only to capture them and eventually butcher them for food. Gloria and her family had to learn that the hard way as they waited for their chance to escape the dark train car they were all forced to stay in. The only thing good about the place was the fact that they all found each other there. 

They’d been left in that train car for at least a day, but that was enough time to prepare for their attack. They’d practically taken apart the inside of the train car, taking any loose metal scraps and breaking off pieces of wood that they could sharpen into weapons. Sasha had even broken her belt buckle to create her own form of brass knuckles. Now, all they needed was to wait for their captors to come and open the door. Soon enough, they all heard men talking amongst themselves, their voices seemingly coming closer to the train car.

“A’right, got four of ‘em pricks comin’ our way.” Daryl says as he peeks through the crack of the door. 

Everyone gets into position, preparing themselves for the attack as Rick makes his way towards the door, “you all know what to do. Go for their eyes first, then their throats.”

They all gather around the door, waiting for it to open. The men from the outside shout at them, ordering them to line up on either end of the train car; as if they thought they were stupid enough to listen to them. Unfortunately, their plan to ambush the Terminus men didn’t go as planned as a hatch from the top of the car opened instead of the door. They all look up as light pours inside then an object is thrown into the car; a smoke bomb.

“Move!” Abraham shouts as everyone takes cover. 

The bomb explodes, filling the entire train car with smoke and the door to the car opens. Shit! That was their chance but they couldn’t see anything, at least not until the smoke cleared. By the time it did, the door had already slammed shut. Gloria waves her hand around to fan away the rest of the smoke from her face as she looks around.

“No…” she says, panic rising in her chest.

Daryl, Glenn, Rick, and Bob were gone. She looks over to Sasha and Maggie who both have the same expression of panic at the realization. Gloria lets out a breath and her expression softens when she sees Carl and Michonne looking at her. Rick is their leader, Daryl and Glenn are their best fighters, and if anything happened, Bob could help them with his medical knowledge. Gareth and his men took their strongest people, and that was a mistake on their part. Knowing their capabilities and how well they worked together, it was no doubt that they would get out of whatever situation they were put in and come back to get the rest of them out. All they needed to do now was wait for them.

After what seemed like an hour of waiting, their signal finally came. A sudden explosion from outside rumbles the train car.

“What was that?” Rosita asks.

“Our help,” Gloria says with a smile.

“What are you doing?” Michonne asks Eugene who was hunched by the door of the car.

“I might be able to use this shell to compromise the door.” he says, not looking up at her as he continues to try and break open the door with the smoke bomb that was thrown in, “from the sound of things, there may not be anybody left to open it.”

“Hey,” Carl says, walking towards him with Maggie behind him, “my dad’s gonna be back.”

“They all are,” Maggie says, “and we need to get ready to fight our way out with them when they do.”

Gloria nods at her with a tight smile, “it’s just a waiting game now.”

With that, the others continue sharpening their makeshift weapons. Gloria takes off Daryl’s shirt that she was wearing and proceeds to tear off the sleeves to wrap around her hands; she knew Daryl wouldn’t mind, plus she likes his shirts sleeveless. She puts it on again once her hands are covered then goes to pry off a sharp piece of wood from the inside of the train car. Not long after, they all hear footsteps approaching the car and soon the door opens. Carl is the first one who runs to the door as he has faith that it’s his father coming to save them.

“Come on! Fight to the fence!” Rick shouts at them before turning around to shoot at the walkers that had infiltrated Terminus. 

Gloria ushers everyone outside and makes sure that no one is left behind before jumping out herself. She jabs at the walkers closest to her before she feels a warm hand grab her wrist to pull her away from the walkers. Gloria quickly turns and sees Daryl as he pulls her away, leading her towards the others. 

“C’mon, let’s go!” he shouts above all the noise.

She nods at him then runs with him towards the fence, killing the walkers that got too close. Finally, they reach the fence and climb over to the other side, narrowly escaping the nightmare that was Terminus. Daryl and Rick lead the group around the perimeter of the place, apparently they had buried a bag of weapons so that whoever ran the place couldn’t take it from them. Smart. Rick wanted to use the guns to take down the rest of Terminus, however, the majority ruled as the others believed that Terminus and all of their people were as good as dead. 

Gloria stands beside Daryl as she watches Rick retrieve the bag of weapons when she feels a tug at her arm and she turns to look at Daryl. It was only then when she saw the cuts and scrapes on his face, she couldn’t see much in the dark train car and they were in a hurry to get out that she didn’t have time to carefully inspect him. 

Daryl seems to notice her change in expression as he is quick to reassure her, “‘M okay. Jus’ a few scratches.”

She furrows her brows and steps to him, carefully raising her hand to brush away his hair that was covering his eyes. Gloria gently trails the side of his face with her fingertips, making Daryl lean slightly into her touch. She moves her hand to brush her thumb on the cut on his lip, her skin just ghosting over his. 

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Nah,” he says. 

Gloria smiles softly at him and she’s about to lean into him when a figure behind Daryl catches her eyes. She looks at the figure and lets out a gasp as she recognizes Carol, there was dirt smeared on her face but she knew it was her. A tearful smile pulls at Gloria’s lips and Daryl sees the change in her expression, then he turns to follow her line of sight. He freezes for a split second when he sees Carol and in the next, he’s dashing over to her and enveloping her in a hug. Gloria lets out a light chuckle as she walks towards the pair of best friends, happy that they’re finally reunited. 

“Carol…” Gloria whispers as the older woman pulls away from Daryl and looks in her direction, Gloria makes her way to her and hugs her tight, “I’m so glad you’re okay…’

She smiles tearfully and pulls away from the hug, caressing Gloria’s cheek with her hand, “me too… here, I believe these are yours.”

Carol lifts her hands to give Daryl back his crossbow and Gloria her daggers, “I found them in their storage room and thought they looked familiar.”

Daryl and Gloria look at her in awe and chuckle at her words. Apparently, Carol was the one who shot at Terminus, blowing up the place and giving them all a chance to escape. She brought the group to an old cabin where Rick and Carl were reunited with Judith, and Tyreese with Sasha. After a tearful but happy reunion, they all decided that it was best to get away from Terminus and so they all began their way into the woods. That night, they decided to camp out in the forest, setting up alerting traps so that they had a safe place to rest for the night. 

“What are you doing?” Glenn asks Gloria who’s sat on the ground using one of her knives to dig out something.

“You remember that thing I had with squirrels?” Gloria asks back as she keeps digging.

“You mean that time you were obsessed with squirrels and watched them from the window every chance you got?” Glenn recalls with a chuckle.

“She did wha’?” Daryl asks as he comes back to their temporary camp with two jugs of water.

“Way to make it look like I was weird,” Gloria eyes Glenn as she continues to dig, “I was watching them at first because they were cute but then I saw how smart but dumb they are. 74% of squirrels forget where they bury their food.”

“You say that as if it’s **not** a weird thing to know,” Glenn chuckles.

“It’s a fun fact,” Gloria says with a cheeky grin.

Daryl sits beside Gloria after putting the water down near the campfire Abraham was building, “what ya doin’ ‘ere then?”

“Seeing if I can find any nuts or acorns,” Gloria answers, then stops digging to point at the patch of dirt, “if you see a random patch of dirt in the middle of a patch of grass, the chances are a squirrel buried something here.”

“Yeah, **definitely** not a weird thing to know,” Glenn teases as he walks towards the camp.

“Won’t see you laughing when you don’t have any acorns!” Gloria mutters as she digs.

Daryl chuckles at her as he shakes his head, “ya learned tha’ from jus’ watchin’ squirrels?”

“Yeah, I could only watch them from my window because my dad didn’t want me to get to close in case they decided to attack me,” she chuckles at the memory, “so when they left my yard I’d go out to see where they dug and I found a pattern each time.” 

“Ya watch ‘em and take their food… but ya can’t hunt ‘em,” Daryl smirks as he leans back on his arms.

“I make do with my own resources, thank you Mr. Dixon,” she rolls her eyes playfully then finally pulls out the acorn from the dirt, “I got one!”

“Jus’ one?” he says, smiling lovingly as he watches her look into the small hole she dug.

“Yeah, just one… sometimes they bury two or three if you’re lucky,” Gloria says then turns to face him, “you want it?”

“Nah, ya can keep it,” he says as he tugs her arm gently so he can wrap his arms around her, “‘sides, ya only got one, don’ wanna just take yer hard find from ya.”

Gloria scoffs as she puts her finding in her pocket, then she snuggles into his side, her arm wrapped around his torso, “I’ll let you know, I dug up a hundred acorns in a day before.”

“A hundred squirrels didn’ eat that day ‘cause o’ ya,” Daryl snorts a laugh, his joke earning a defeated chuckle from Gloria.

“God, I missed you,” she sighs as she rests her head on his shoulder, smiling softly when he kisses the top of her head. 

“I missed ya too… oh,” he says then gently pushes her off of him and reaches into his pocket, “a’most forgot, here.”

Gloria lets out a quiet gasp when she sees the necklace she lost dangling in Daryl’s hand, “I never thought I’d ever see this again.”

Daryl smiles and gestures for her to turn around so he can help her put it back on, “how’d ya lose it, anyway?”

“Got taken by a group of guys when I ran into Nina, they took our stuff,” she shrugs then looks back at Daryl when she feels him stiffen up at her words, “they didn’t do anything to me, I promise.”

He just nods, pursing his lips and Gloria sighs, knowing that he didn’t fully believe her, “Daryl, they didn’t touch me or anything. Nina… wasn’t very lucky in that sense… they took her first, gave me time to figure out how to get out of there… but I could hear her screaming… sometimes I can still hear her.”

“‘M sorry,” he says, caressing her cheek with his thumb.

“It’s fine,” she says then moves to put her head on his chest, as an automatic reaction, Daryl wraps his arms around her shoulder.

“They kill Nina?” he asks quietly.

“No, I did.” Gloria tells him, earning an acknowledging hum from him as if he expected it already, “how’d you get my necklace?”

“Got caught up wit’ a couple o’ pricks, Rick killed ‘em, foun’ this hangin’ out o’ one o’ their pockets an’ thought it looked like yers ‘r Glenn’s. Noticed ya didn’ have yers.” Daryl explains.

“What happened to you after the prison? Where’d you go?” she asks after a moment of silence.

“I ran with Beth, she told me ya were already on that bus an’ I wanted to chase after ya… but there were too many walkers on the road, couldn’ risk makin’ it to ya without gettin’ chewed up,” he tells her.

“You couldn’t risk Beth,” she says, reading his mind, “what happened to her?”

“She got taken by some assholes in a car… house we were stayin’ in got swarmed, told her to run… tha’s when they took her… tried to track it but they were too far gone…” he says, his voice trembling in guilt.

“It’s not your fault,” Gloria pushes herself up to look at him, knowing he wouldn’t listen to her, “we’ll find her, it’ll be okay.”

“‘M sorry,” he says as he looks her in the eyes.

She frowns at this, “for what? Daryl, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I almos’ gave up on tryin’ to find ya… when the prison went down, I didn’ know if I’d ever see ya again…” he admits, “Beth… she was the one who told me not to give up.”

The guilt in Daryl’s eyes told Gloria that he expected her to get mad at him for even having the thought of giving up on finding her. He expected her to get upset and leave him alone, deprive him of any affection no matter how much he craved. 

“Then I’ll just have to thank her for snapping some sense into you when we find her,” Gloria says with a hint of a smile.

Her smile was enough to tell him that she wasn’t angry or upset, it was more than enough to chase away his inner demons and light up his heart. Daryl wasn’t able to stop himself from pressing his lips to hers in a deep, tender kiss. He caresses her face with his hand and she giggles softly when he gently pushes her to lie on her back.

Gloria pulls away from the kiss slightly, their lips barely a millimeter apart, “the others are around.”

“They ain’t watchin’ us,” he says, pecking her lips, “‘sides, camp’s far enough from us that they can’t see shit, ya jus’ gotta keep quiet.”

Before she can respond, Daryl captures her lips with his once again. Gloria lets out a soft breathy moan as his lips trail her jaw in light feathery kisses but just as soon as it started, Daryl quickly pulls away from her and looks behind him, seeming to be on high alert. Furrowing her brow in concern, she props herself up on her elbow and follows Daryl’s line of sight.

“Do you see something?” Gloria asks, trusting his hunter instincts.

“Nah,” he says, getting up to inspect the area, “more ‘bout what I felt.”

“Let’s just keep watch then,” she suggests.

Daryl sighs as he turns around, not finding anything, he makes his way back to her, “nah, ya should sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

“Fine, I’ll sleep,” she says and waits until he’s sitting back down beside her, “but only if you let me cuddle you.”

He chuckles at her words and pulls her into his embrace, holding her close as she lays on his chest. Soon enough, Gloria’s drifted off to sleep in the arms of the man she loves. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

The next morning, Daryl had gone out to try and hunt for food while Gloria stayed back at the camp to collect their things so they could head out once he came back. There was no exact destination in mind, but the group knew they couldn’t stay in one place, especially not in the middle of the woods for a long period of time. They needed to find some kind of shelter to possibly build up a home of some sort. Heading to D.C. was on the back of their minds, but they wanted to settle down and take a breather first since Washington was a long journey away. 

As they trudged along in the woods, Daryl came back with a string of squirrels hanging off his belt. The others were still wary and alert from what they had encountered in Terminus so when they heard and felt the rustle in the leaves, they automatically raised their weapons at whoever it was. 

Daryl looks at the others who had their guns aimed at him and he raises his arms, “we surrender.” 

Gloria chuckles at his joke as the others lower their guns. Daryl joins Rick at the front of the group to report anything he potentially saw in the woods; he had told him about how he felt like he was being watched the night before.

“Help! Help!” a voice calls out in the distance, “please! Somebody help me!”

The group stop in their tracks as they look at one another, not sure of what to do until Carl urges his father to go and help whoever is calling out. They all rush towards the voice, Rick in the lead as he kills the first walker he sees. A man in all black, seemingly in priest attire, is on top of a large rock, shouting out for help as walkers surround him. The group jump into action, stabbing at the walkers and shooting at them until there are none left in the area. Rick goes to help the man down from the rock and before he is able to thank any of them, the man throws up on the ground. An awkward silence passes as the priest empties out his stomach. 

“I’m sorry,” the man says once he is able to stand up straight, “Thank you, thank you all for saving me. I’m Gabriel.”

“Do you have any weapons?” Rick says, his eyes never leaving him.

“No, I have no weapons of any kind, the only protection I need is the word of God.” he says confidently. 

“Sure didn’ look like it,” Daryl remarks.

“Well,” Gabriel looks around with a tired smile, “I called for help, help came.”

“He’s got a point,” Gloria shrugs.

Rick continues to interrogate Gabriel and they find out that he has a church nearby. As gratitude for saving his life, Gabriel invites them back to his church to rest and regroup. Apparently, he’d been there since the beginning and only recently had to leave the church to scavenge for food. On the way to the church, Rick questions Gabriel whether or not he was the one who was watching them earlier but the priest seemed clueless as to what he was talking about. Once at the church, Rick and a few others go inside first to make sure it wasn’t a trap like Terminus. They needed to be certain that Gabriel wasn’t lying about being alone and soon enough, his story seemed to check out as they found that the church was indeed empty. 

Gabriel had also told Rick about the small town that they could go on a run for food and supplies. Rick complies with this but as he doesn’t completely trust the priest, he forces him to go along with him, Michonne, Bob, and Sasha. Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene were at the back of the church where there was a shortbus parked, they were trying to fix it up so that they could get on the road as soon as possible. Glenn, Maggie, and Tara had gone to the same town Rick had but were covering different parts of the town; they’d found a nearby gun store in the phonebook and decided to test their luck. Carol and Daryl went out to collect water, leaving Gloria back in the church with Carl, Judith, and Tyreese. 

“Hey, Gloria?” Carl calls out as he turns to face her from looking at the organ in the corner of the church, “did you used to play any instruments?”

“It’s been a while, but I played piano for a bit, also played the guitar,” Gloria answers with a smile as she walks down the altar of the church towards him, “why, what’s up?”

“Piano, so you can play that?” he asks, pointing to the instrument.

She glances over to where he’s pointing and chuckles, “I don’t know, never tried playing an organ before.”

“Organ?” Carl tilts his head in confusion as he lowers his arm, “isn’t that a piano?”

Judith coos as Tyreese holds her in his arms as he sits on one of the church benches, making Gloria look over at her and chuckles along with Tyreese.

“Seems like she wants to know the same thing,” he says, bouncing her up in his arms.

“That there is an organ,” Gloria begins, “I know it looks a lot like a piano, but it’s actually very different.”

“Different how?” Carl asks, genuinely curious. 

“Well, they’re in different families of instruments. Pianos are percussion, meaning something needs to be hit in order to make any sound, while the organ is a woodwind instrument and wind has to blow through it in order to play it,” she says, then she points up to the metal pipes of the organ, “see those metal pipes? That’s where the wind would blow and you see how they’re all different lengths? That’s how the different notes are played, each pipe plays its own note.”

Carl looks at the pipes and he smiles at the new information, “cool.”

“Havin’ a music lesson ‘r somethin’?” Daryl says as he walks into the church with Carol behind him, both of them holding two jugs of water.

Gloria looks over at him and smiles, “a mini one.”

He walks with Carol towards the altar where they place the jugs of water. Daryl makes his way over to Gloria to make sure that she’s alright. Carl walks over to the organ then turns to Gloria.

“Can you play it?” he asks, a sheepish smile on his face, “I’ve just… I never heard an organ before.”

“I’d love to enlighten your ears, buddy, but organs are actually really loud. I don’t think you’d all like it very much if I played and attracted every walker in the area right to the church,” Gloria says, giving him an apologetic look.

“That’s true… maybe we’ll find another instrument that’s quieter and in a safe place,” Carl says. 

“Maybe,” Gloria says with a smile. 

Later on in the evening, everyone else had come back to the church. Glenn’s group had found three silencers that the group could put into good use, and Rick’s group had brought back bins and bins of canned food. That night, they would feast, the group had suffered enough in the last few days alone, they deserved this. 

“I’d like to propose a toast!” Abraham calls out as the group eats with candles as their light, he waits for everyone to pay attention to him before continuing, “I look around this room, and I see survivors. Each and everyone o’ you, have earned that title. To the survivors!”

He raises his glass and the group choruses his words, also raising their cups and glasses. 

“Is that all you want to be? Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat?” he pauses, “‘cause you can do that, you got the strength, the skill, but the thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that’s just surrender. Now, if we get Eugene to Washington, he will make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad take away for a little road trip. Eugene, what’s in D.C.?”

“Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart.” Eugene says. 

Restart. Gloria had never thought that they would ever have a chance to restart the world, maybe even revert it back to the way things used to be. Abraham’s speech seemed to convince Rick, as well as everyone else, that their best option now was to go with them to D.C. and save the world. The idea of having her normal life back again brought a smile to her face as she sits on the porch outside the church with Daryl. He had wanted to go out for a smoke after their meal and Gloria had followed him out. She leans on the railing opposite of the one Daryl is leaning on and she can’t help her smile as she thinks about the possibility of returning back to how things used to be.

“What ya thinkin’ ‘bout?” Daryl asks, a small smiling tugging at his lips when he sees her expression.

“Hm?” Gloria looks up at him, she blushes slightly and shakes her head, “nothing.”

“C’mon,” he gently nudges her with his hand, “tell me.”

“You’re not usually this persistent,” Gloria chuckles.

“Ya don’ usually smile like that,” Daryl smiles wider when she looks away shyly, “you’re beautiful.”

Gloria was grateful for it being dark so that Daryl wouldn’t be able to see the blush on her cheeks. She looks back at him before telling him what was on her mind.

“I was thinking about how the world can go back to how it used to be. Which means,” she reaches out and takes his hand in hers, “we can go on more than just hunting dates.”

“Thought ya liked goin’ huntin’ wit’ me,” Daryl says, playfully eying her.

“I do, but you gotta give a girl a little variety,” Gloria grins at him.

He scoffs, “like what?”

“The typical dinner and a movie, maybe a carnival,” she says, “ice cream dates.”

“Ice cream dates?” Daryl asks and Gloria hums a yes, “we jus’ go an’ get ice cream?”

“Yep, as simple as that, but it has to be from an ice cream truck or parlor, tub ice cream doesn’t count unless it’s on a cone. It would take away from the experience,” Gloria explains.

Daryl chuckles at her words then nods, “then when the world turns back to normal, we’ll go get ice cream.”

Gloria grins and pushes herself off the railing and steps to Daryl as she hugs him. He wraps his arms around her waist after flicking the butt of the cigarette off to the side.

“You know what I also always wanted to do?” she says, her head resting on his chest and she giggles when she feels the vibration in his chest when he hums in acknowledgement, “take a walk under a full moon.”

Daryl scoffs at her words, “ya can do that now, even when the world is in shit.”

“I know, just because I can do it now doesn’t mean I don’t want to,” she says.

He smiles then gently pushes her off him and steps down from the porch and slings his crossbow that was resting on the side of the porch onto his shoulder. Daryl reaches out to her and Gloria tilts her head in confusion.

“Ya said ya wanted to walk under the full moon,” he says, urging her to take his outreached hand.

Gloria looks up at the sky and sees the moon, “but it’s not a full moon.”

Daryl rolls his eyes and grabs her hand, gently pulling her to walk with him, “‘s full enough.”

She chuckles as she follows him down the path into the woods. The two walk hand in hand, enjoying each other’s company under the moonlight while looking out for each other at the same time. Gloria doesn’t need to ask Daryl where he’s taking her as she trusts him with her life, and she knows that he’d be able to find their way back to the church if they ever got lost. It seemed that Daryl knew exactly where he was going as the path they took soon reached a road. 

“Me an’ Carol found this car when we were gettin’ water earlier,” Daryl says, gesturing to the car that was parked at the side of the road, “still works, she said to leave it here for backup in case shit goes down at the church.”

“You don’t trust Gabriel?” Gloria questions.

“Don’ know him, can’t exactly trust the guy if ya don’ really know him,” he says.

Gloria was about to say something else in regards to Gabriel but the sound of a car in the distance takes their attention away from one another. The two of them duck down behind the parked car so that whoever was driving by wouldn’t be able to see them, not risking it if whoever was in the car was dangerous. Soon, the car zooms past them on the intersection of the road and Daryl gets out from behind the parked car to check out the vehicle that had driven past. He lets out a curse then rushes back towards the parked car. 

“What are you doing?” Gloria asks, watching him as he begins to smash out the lights of the car, “What are you doing?!”

“They got Beth!” he shouts as he hits out the last of the lights. 

Without another word, the two of them get into the car. Daryl in the driver’s seat, and Gloria in the passenger’s. Daryl quickly starts the car and zooms down the road to follow the car. Thankfully, the other car didn’t get very far before they were able to follow it.

“Is that a cross?” Gloria asks as she stares at the car’s rear windshield; there was a large white cross seemingly painted on the glass.

“Yeah, tha’s how I know it’s them,” Daryl says, carefully following the car.

Soon, the car slows when it nears the outskirts of Atlanta and eventually stops. Daryl stops the car a few yards behind it, they watch and observe the car and the people inside. They watch as a man in a police uniform comes out of the car.

“A cop?” Gloria says in a questioning tone.

“Seems like.” Daryl says, not taking his eyes off the man.

Gloria furrows her brows at the information. Beth was taken by cops to the city in a car that had a cross on the rear windshield. 

“Grady Memorial…” she says softly. 

“What?” Daryl asks.

“Grady Memorial Hospital, that might be where we can find Beth,” Gloria tells him and he looks at her with a confused frown, “there’s a white cross on that car and it’s driven by a cop, cops always patrolled Grady before the outbreak and the local police department isn’t far from it, they might have taken over the hospital after shit went down.” 

“Makes sense,” Daryl mutters, “they’d have medicine, food… they’d be stocked.”

“Not only that, the generators were built to keep going for years if a national power outage ever happened, they needed to make sure life support still worked in case of emergency.” Gloria says.

Out of nowhere, a loud thud sounds on the passenger door as a walker pounds on the window. Both of them freeze, hoping that the cop wouldn’t find them from the racket the walker was causing. Thankfully, he doesn’t pay it much attention as he returns to his own car, driving away. Once the car is out of sight, Gloria rolls down the window slightly and pulls out a dagger from her belt and stabs the walker through its eye. She rolls the window back up as the walker falls lifelessly beside their car. Daryl tries to turn on the car again only to find out that the tank was empty. 

“Dammit…” Daryl curses, then looks up at the road when they all hear snarling as walkers start to emerge from the shadows, “we gotta move, find some place to hole up ‘til sunlight.”

“I know a place,” Gloria says.

“Where?” Daryl asks.

“Me and Glenn’s old apartment, it’s a couple blocks away but it’s just a ten or so minute walk away from Grady,” she tells them.

“Okay,” Daryl says, side smiling at her, “lead the way.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

It didn’t take Daryl and Gloria very long to get to her old apartment building. She had used old landmarks to navigate and since the streets stayed relatively the same, Gloria was able to bring Daryl back to her and Glenn’s old home. Luckily, they were able to avoid any walkers along the way. She opens the door to the building and goes inside with Daryl following behind her. The lobby was dark as their only source of light was from the partially full moon. 

“I doubt the elevators are still working, so we’ll need to take the stairs,” Gloria says, then she takes Daryl’s hand in hers and leads him to the stairwell.

He doesn’t question her as he lets her lead the way, knowing that she was familiar with the now run down building. The two make their way up the stairs and eventually get to the seventh floor where Gloria’s apartment unit was. 

“Ya still got yer keys?” Daryl says as they approach a door to the unit.

“Nope,” Gloria says, she then crouches down and lifts up the welcome mat placed just outside the door, picking up a key that she and Glenn left in case of emergency, “but I always have a backup.”

Daryl chuckles as she gets back up and unlocks the door, opening it. He makes her go in first, making sure that no one was following them before he follows her inside. Gloria looks around her apartment, a small smile on her lips as she sees that everything was left just the way she did the last time she was inside. She looks back at Daryl when she hears the flicking of a light switch, she sees him trying to turn the lights on but it remains dark. 

“I’m pretty sure we have candles,” Gloria says, making her way to the kitchen.

With the light of the moon peeking in from the windows, she opens the cupboard where she remembers she kept candles and finds a pack of tealight candles. Closing the cupboard, Gloria opens the pack then feels around for the handle of a drawer. Once her hand locates the handle, she pulls open the drawer and carefully feels around for a lighter.

“What’re ya doin’?” Daryl asks as he walks into the kitchen.

“Looking for my lighter,” she tells him, frowning when she doesn’t feel it.

Without saying anything else, Daryl reaches into his pocket and takes out his lighter. He flips open the lid and lights the lighter. The glow from the flame brightens up the kitchen, making it much easier for Gloria to find her own lighter.

“Thanks,” she says with a smile as she grabs the lighter from the drawer. 

After lighting a candle from the pack and putting it on a plate so whoever was holding it wouldn’t burn their fingertips, Gloria leads Daryl to her old bedroom. Still holding his own lighter as a lightsource, he looks around her room as Gloria goes over to place the plate with the candle on the night table by her bed. Daryl had gone over to her desk, his curiosity getting to him as he sees the picture frames. 

A small smile tugs at his lips as he looks at the photos, most of them were either single shots of her or her with her arm around Glenn. One photo in particular caught his attention; it was a candid shot of her with her eyes closed as she sang into a microphone while playing her guitar. Daryl’s eyes linger on that photo as he remembers how she used to lull him to sleep, it hadn’t even been that long since those times but he still missed it. He felt his cheeks blushing as he thought about how her voice made him feel. He looks away at the other things on her desk, trying to snap himself out of his shyness and the papers on the desk catch his attention.

Daryl furrows his brow as he picks up the papers in his free hand, “wha’s this?”

“What’s what?” Gloria says as she walks back into the room with cleaner sheets.

She had cleared her bed of the sheets that were already covering it and changed them with clean ones. She was aware that they had slept in much dirtier conditions, but since this was her old house and she still knew where everything was, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to sleep with fresh sheets and blankets. 

Daryl turns around to face her, pages in his hand, “‘Dear Future Lover’?”

He notices a look of bewilderment and bashfulness in her eyes as they widen when she looks at the pages. Daryl raises an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to talk.

“That’s just… a song I wrote… you know, before everything,” Gloria says, trying to shrug it off. 

Daryl purses his lips in thought then flicks the lid back on the lighter, putting out the flame then he sits down on her bed. He puts the paper on the bed as he looks up at her. He notices her pressing her lips together when she looks down at the pages. 

“Le’s hear it,” Daryl says suddenly.

“What?” Gloria says, her eyes wide as she looks at him.

“Yer song,” he says, nodding pointedly to the paper, then adds quickly when she stares at him hesitantly, “I prolly won’ be able to sleep tonight, not after findin’ tha’ car an’ knowin’ Beth’s just ‘round the corner. Yer voice always helped me through the night.”

A soft smile pulls at Gloria’s lips as she registers his words and Daryl lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He was worried that he was pushing her to do something she wasn’t comfortable with and that was the last thing he wanted. He felt bad about bringing up her past even if it was just a song, especially with the way she reacted when he found it.

“Okay,” Gloria says and lets out a breath before bringing over her guitar that was resting on its stand in the corner of the room, “gotta give you the full experience.”

Daryl chuckles and smiles at her as she tunes the guitar. He’d had a secret motive when he found the sheet music on her desk. He noticed the guitar when he first glanced around her room, and seeing the photo of her performing peaked his interest. He wanted to hear her sing for him, he thought of himself as selfish but he couldn’t help himself. Daryl wanted to see and hear the star in Gloria come out. 

“Ready?” she says shyly, glancing up at him and when he nods, she begins to strum the strings on her guitar and after a few chords, she begins to sing.

_Dear future lover,_

_I hope you’re not very far_

_Sweet angel lover_

_I’ve had dreams that’s who you are_

_I have been waiting,_

_For the day my dreams come true_

_And that’s the day that I find you_

Daryl could feel his heart swelling with pride as he watches her play and hears her sing. He didn’t know it was possible to fall in love with her twice, but in that moment, he knew it was. Gloria is in her own world as she plays the instrumental break in her song, knowing the exact cues as she starts to sing again.

_Oh, everyday_

_I just can’t help but think of you_

_About who you are and what you do_

_And why I’ll fall in love with you_

_Don’t know if I’ve already passed you by_

_But if you’re near me, hear me say_

She refrains the first chorus of the song, strumming and singing with a passion Daryl never saw in her before. He adored every single bit of her song, and as he listened to the lyrics, a sense of shyness welled up in him. A part of him knew it was silly, but he couldn’t help himself but think that Gloria somehow wrote this song for him before they even met. 

Gloria strums the last few chords of her song and lets out a breath then looks up shyly at Daryl, “it’s one of my shorter pieces.”

“I like it,” he says with a side smile, there was a hint of shyness in his voice.

“And?” she presses on it when he doesn’t answer, “I can tell you want to say something else, Daryl.”

He averts his eyes from her as she calls him out, “was jus’ wonderin’ who ya were thinking of when ya wrote it…”

Gloria purses her lips to keep from letting out a giggle. She gets up from sitting on the bed to put her guitar back on its stand and returns to the bed. 

“You can technically say I was thinking of you,” she says with a cheeky smile. 

Daryl scoffs at her words, “ya didn’ even know me…”

“Were you not listening? It’s a song all about a future lover, someone I hadn’t met yet. When I wrote it, I was studying my ass off to get that internship, I didn’t have many friends, let alone boyfriends,” Gloria says, “you’re right, I didn’t know you when I wrote it, but maybe there was just something inside me that just knew I’d find you.”

He finally looks at her, guilt in his eyes. He had asked her to sing her song for him and now he was acting up because he was selfish that she hadn’t written it directly for him since she didn’t know him when she wrote it. Daryl hated that he did that to her, it was unfair and he knew he wasn’t being reasonable at all.

“‘M sorry…” he mutters.

“Don’t be,” Gloria smiles softly at him, she then moves to put her head on his chest, snuggling in his embrace as he wraps his arms around her, “if it helps, the song I wrote back at the prison was for you. I don’t have any lyrics yet, but I was thinking of you while writing it.”

A loving smile tugs on Daryl’s lips and he kisses the top of her head, “ya still remember how it sounds?”

Gloria chuckles softly and nods, knowing that he wants her to hum it to him, “get some rest, we have a big day tomorrow.”

She sits up only to blow out the candle on her night stand and immediately goes back to cuddle Daryl. He lets out a content sigh as he closes his eyes and soon falls asleep with a small smile on his lips as Gloria lulls him to sleep. 

—

Early the next morning, Daryl and Gloria packed up their things and any essentials they could take from her old apartment. Gloria had found one of Glenn’s old backpacks, stuffing it with some of her and Glenn’s clothes, knowing he’d appreciate it.

“‘Ya said it’s a ten minute walk?” Daryl asks as he walks out of her apartment with his crossbow slung on his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Gloria says as she closes the door, “I don’t think it’s the best idea to go in through the main door though, we don’t want to be seen.” 

“Whaddya suggest, then?” he asks as he walks quickly with her down the hallway and to the stairway.

She pushes the door to the stairway open and they proceed to make it down the stairs, “there’s a bunch of hidden entrances that barely anyone knows about, we can try to go through there.” 

“How’d ya know ‘bout ‘em?” Daryl asks.

“Used to have to sneak in because I would run late,” Gloria tells him sheepishly.

Daryl scoffs playfully at her words and finally they reach the bottom of the stairway. He pushes the door open and they enter the lobby of the apartment building. He lets Gloria lead the way out of the building and they quickly head towards the hospital. Successfully avoiding any walkers, the two hide behind a pillar holding up a building across the street from their destination. Gloria peaks out from behind the pillar to check for any guards and she frowns when she sees two men in cop uniforms making their rounds. She’s about to tell Daryl when she hears a commotion coming from behind her and she turns around to see Daryl pinning a younger, darker skinned man to the pillar. 

“Who are ya an’ why ya followin’ us?!” Daryl says angrily, pushing his forearm on the man’s chest while aiming his crossbow at his head with his other arm.

“Daryl, calm down,” Gloria rushes to quiet down Daryl but he doesn’t seem to be listening to her.

“Ya got some nerve on ya, kid, I’ll give ya that. Did ya really think ya could sneak up on us an’ take our shit?!” he snarls.

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the young man cowers.

“Daryl, stop! We can’t waste time on him, we gotta get Beth!” Gloria says in a harsh whisper.

“Beth?” the young man questions, glancing at Gloria for a second before looking back at Daryl in fear, “y-you guys are looking for Beth?”

“Ya know her?” Daryl asks, his patience growing thin, “I asked ya if ya know her!”

“I do!” the man says immediately, “young, blonde, around this tall? I was trying to get her too!”

As Daryl continues to interrogate the man, Gloria glances in the direction of the cops she saw earlier and curses under her breath when she sees that they seem to have heard the commotion. She sees one of the cops talking to his colleague while pointing in their general direction. They needed to sneak into the hospital to get Beth but if they got caught now, there was no telling if they would be able to get out unscathed. Gloria needed to create a distraction, it was the best move on her part. She knew the ins and outs of the hospital so she could get out easily if she got caught, she needed to let Daryl escape. Gloria knew he’d be pissed at her but she couldn’t think of that right now. Quickly, she takes off her backpack that was slung on her shoulder and throws it to Daryl’s feet, catching his attention as he looks at her with a frown.

“Get this kid out of here, now!” Gloria tells him and she doesn’t give him a chance to respond as she dashes out from behind the pillar and down the road.

As she had planned, she caught the attention of the guards and they started to shout for her to stop where she was going. Unfortunately, before she could get very far, she felt a prick in her side and immediately after, a sharp burning pain entered her system. Gloria collapses, unable to even scream as her muscles throughout her body contract. Just before she blacks out, she hears the footsteps of the cops coming up to collect her body. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

A bruising pain in Gloria’s side is the first thing she feels when she begins to regain consciousness. She was lying down on what felt like a soft mattress and she figured that after she was shot by whatever the hell the cops shot her with, they brought her into the hospital.

“No! You’re not killing her like you did Gavin, I won’t let you!” a familiar voice says. 

“You know how much O’Donnell wants me dead, he’s just waiting for an opportunity to get rid of me and if they find out she’s a doctor, they won’t have a reason to keep me around!” a man says, his voice sounding very frustrated and emotional.

“I don’t care, you are **not** hurting her,” the other voice says. 

Gloria forces herself to open her eyes and she looks to her side to see Beth and a man in a lab coat. A tired smile spreads on her lips as she sees that the girl is alive and well.

“Beth…” she says softly, catching both of their attention.

“You’re awake!” Beth says with a tearful grin as she goes to Gloria’s side, “how’re you feeling?”

“Like I was electrocuted,” she chuckles. 

“That’s usually how it is when you get tased,” the man in the lab coat says, pursing his lips. 

Beth frowns at him and Gloria looks up at the man and a look of recognition crosses her face, “Steven?”

“You know him?” Beth asks, glancing back and forth between the two.

“He was one of the senior interns here,” Gloria replies, sitting herself up on the bed.

Steven gives Gloria a tight smile, “long time no see, Gloria…”

“That’s how you knew she’s a doctor…” Beth mutters, she then stands up on the bed and steps between Gloria and Steven, “you’re not coming anywhere near her.” 

“Beth…” Steven sighs as he tries to take a step towards her.

“Stay back! Don’t come near her or I’ll tell Dawn what you did to Gavin,” Beth shouts. 

“Gavin…? As in Gavin Trevitt?” Gloria questions, “what happened to him?”

“He used me to kill him,” Beth answers without looking back at her. 

Gloria stares at Steven with shocked eyes. From her knowledge, Steven and Gavin were best friends, she never would have thought that Steven would kill his best friend, not even after the world fell apart. However, gathering the information from his and Beth’s conversation before she opened her eyes, she could only guess it was for self preservation. She registered the look of remorse on Steven’s face at Beth’s words. Before Gloria could say anything about the matter, the door opens and two people in police uniforms enter the room, a man and a woman.

“Quite a commotion in here,” the woman says, “ is everything okay?”

Beth and Steven nod but don’t say anything else. She moves to the side when the woman steps towards Gloria. 

“You’re awake,” she says with a smile, “I’m Lieutenant Dawn Lerner, I run this place and that’s Officer O’Donnell, he’s the one who brought you in.”

Gloria glances over at Officer O’Donnell then back at Dawn as she scoffs, “you mean he’s the one who tased me?”

“They did what had to be done, my men told me you were coming at them aggressively,” Dawn says, crossing her arms.

“Then your men are just liars, I was running away from them,” Gloria corrects.

“Do you have any witnesses to prove that?” Dawn challenges. 

Gloria frowns at her question. She was aware that Daryl and that other guy would have witnessed the entire thing, so hearing her question relieved her that they didn’t seem to have either of them. What annoyed her now was that she thought she could pry it out of her that she had more people. 

“No, I don’t have witnesses, but I do have proof,” Gloria says causing Dawn and O’Donnell to frown, “if I was running towards your people, I wouldn’t have been shot in the back and I’m sure you’ll see the small holes in my lower back from the taser if you lift my shirt.”

Dawn turns to look at O’Donnell who stutters to defend himself, “she was running from us yes, but she clearly saw that we’re cops, someone who is good and innocent wouldn’t run from authority.”

“Why were you running from them?” Dawn looks back at Gloria.

“I saw three men with guns. It didn’t matter that they were wearing uniforms, they could have stolen them for all I know. I wasn’t going to take the risk,” Gloria says in her defence. 

“She’s got a point,” Beth says quickly, earning a look from Dawn. 

“Well, either way, you’re here now and you’ve taken up some of our resources, so you owe us.” Dawn tells her.

Beth glances worriedly at Gloria, she knew that Gloria would not take that well at all. The look on her face was already a dead give away that Gloria was not happy with what Dawn had just said.

“Owe you? What the hell do I owe you?” Gloria asks, rage evident in her voice.

“For starters, the bed you’ve occupied for the last few hours since you were knocked out.” Dawn says, matter-of-factly.

“Technically, **you** owed **me** the bed,” Gloria says, earning a frown from Dawn, “your men shot me with a taser, if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have needed it.”

“If it weren’t for my men who brought you in, you’d be lying in the street waiting for rotters to get to you, my men **saved your life**.” Dawn raises her voice.

Gloria rolls her eyes and scoffs, putting it all together, “is that the kind of bullshit system you run, Lieutenant?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dawn says, clenching her teeth, “it seems to me that you have a problem with authority!”

“Do you know what I have a problem with?” Gloria says, getting up from the bed so that she’s eye level with Dawn, “I have a problem with manipulative people like you trying to twist shit so it all works out for you. This damn system you run is built off of lies and manipulation, everyone here who works for you gets the shit end of the stick, everyone but you.”

Gloria could see the rage and anger in Dawn’s eyes. Without saying anything else, Dawn quickly steps back and pulls her gun from its holster and aims it at Gloria. However, before she could even pull back the hammer, Gloria grabs her forearm and strikes Dawn’s wrist with the side of her hand, making her grip on the gun falter and Gloria grabs the gun from her. Gloria takes a step back as she aims the gun at Dawn, pulling back the hammer. She notices that O’Donnell had pulled out his gun and had it aimed at Gloria. 

“Don’t.” Dawn seems to have noticed as well as she raises her hand in O’Donnell’s direction, seemingly fearful for her own life. 

Dawn was well aware that Gloria wouldn’t have a problem pulling the trigger, she already showed it with how she held herself. The atmosphere in the room was tense as O’Donnell didn’t listen to Dawn, his gun still pointed in Gloria’s direction.

“O’Donnell, lower your gun,” Dawn says, not looking over at him, “what do you want?”

Gloria furrows her brow in confusion at her question, “what?”

“You came to the city, to the hospital for a reason, what is it that you want?” she asks again.

She came for Beth, but at this point in time, Gloria couldn’t tell them that. With how these people were, they would surely use Beth against her if they found out, and then neither of them would get out of that place unscathed. 

“Supplies. Food, medicine, medical supplies, I have a camp in a quarry just outside the city, I came to the city for a supply run.” Gloria says, making Beth glance at her.

Gloria prayed that Dawn and her people didn’t go outside the city to explore otherwise her lie would have been exposed. From the look on her face though, it seems like she believes her story. 

“I can provide you and your people with supplies,” Dawn nods, “but like you noticed, there is a system here, I can’t just let you take our supplies without you giving something back.”

“I have nothing to give you,” Gloria says, not faltering.

“Yes, you do. You can help around the hospital for a day and I’ll give you the supplies you want, you have my word.” Dawn says, sincerity in her voice.

Gloria sees that Dawn means what she’s saying and she looks at O’Donnell, “we lower at the same time.”

O’Donnell glances over at Dawn as he still holds the gun, Dawn looks over at him and nods. He sighs and then nods at Gloria. The two of them slowly lower their guns simultaneously. When O’Donnell holsters his weapon, Gloria uncocks the hammer and flips it around to hand it back to Dawn. 

“Beth, bring… sorry, I never got your name,” Dawn says.

“Gloria.” 

“Bring Gloria to get a set of clean scrubs then go and find Dr. Edwards in his office, he’ll have something for you to do there.” she instructs, holstering her gun.

Dawn nods at the two of them then exits the room with O’Donnell and Steven. Beth and Gloria watch the two leave, then Beth turns to look at Gloria. The younger girl tackles the older in a hug, causing Gloria to chuckle softly as she hugs Beth back. 

—

After changing into scrubs, Beth and Gloria had gone to find Steven in his office and he told them to go and clean up the storage rooms. The girls spent a few hours cleaning up and eventually Beth brought Gloria to the pantry. 

“I thought she had a system and you have to pay back what you take?” Gloria says, crossing her arms as Beth takes out some food from the cupboards. 

Beth shrugs, “I already owe a lot, plus you deserve this.”

Gloria tilts her head, “for what?”

“For being amazing,” she says with a bright smile, “I’ve wanted to talk that way to Dawn and shut her up since the day I met her.” 

Gloria chuckles, slightly embarrassed, “pretty sure if Glenn heard about what I did, he would call me stupid for almost getting myself killed.”

Beth’s face falls at the mention of Glenn and that’s when Gloria realizes that she doesn’t know that they’re all still alive. 

“Beth,” Gloria starts but is interrupted by her.

“I’m sorry!” Beth says, guilt in her eyes, “I was with Daryl after the prison but we got separated, I don’t know where he is… I’m sorry…”

“Hey, it’s okay, I know where he is,” Gloria reassures her, “I know where everyone is, I found them. Maggie, I found her too and I’m gonna bring you back to her. That’s why I came to the city in the first place.”

“I thought you came to get supplies?” Beth furrows her brow.

“That was a lie, I had to lie so they couldn’t somehow use you against me,” Gloria says.

“How’d you even know I was here?” Beth asks.

“Daryl tracked down one of their cars and we followed it back to the city. I made an educated guess that you got brought here, we were going to come get you together but… then I got tased.” Gloria tells her.

Beth nods at her information, “then, they’re at the quarry camp like you said?”

“No, they’re at a church, the quarry camp was where I stayed before we got to your farm,” she replies. 

They continue their talk; Gloria tells Beth about what happened to her and how she found Maggie after the prison was attacked then eventually the group and Beth tells Gloria about how she got taken by the people from Grady Memorial. Apparently, when Beth and Daryl stayed at a funeral home that was stocked with food, Daryl had opened the door to the house thinking that it was a stray dog that made noise outside but instead was greeted by a herd of walkers. The two of them had to run out of the house but when Beth got out first, she ran into the people of Grady Memorial and they pulled her into their car and drove away. 

“So… you got kidnapped because of a dog?” Gloria asks to confirm, an amused look on her face.

“Yep,” Beth says with a grin.

“We have to tease him about that when we see him again,” Gloria chuckles then her expression turns serious, “Beth? Do you know the night schedule around here?”

“What do you mean?” Beth asks, returning her serious look.

“I mean… Do they have a system here? Like a set bedtime, if there are any patrols, shift changes?” Gloria clarifies.

“Um… not sure about a bedtime but there are always patrols even during their shift change, we won’t be able to get out of here at night because there’s always someone guarding the entrances,” Beth explains.

Gloria nods as she registers her words, “then we won’t use the main entrances. At night, does anyone patrol H1?” 

“H1? No, I don’t think so, not at night at least.” Beth tells her.

“Okay, later tonight, that’s where you meet me, I know a way out from there.” Gloria tells her.

Beth nods with a confident smile. Gloria was determined to do whatever she could to get Beth back to Maggie. She felt that she owed her that after Maggie helped her reunite with Glenn. 

—

Gloria waited until it was dark out to sneak out of the room she was temporarily assigned to. She’d changed back into her regular clothes since she didn’t want to be in scrubs any longer; that was part of her past now. She and Beth both knew that it was a bad idea to stick together the whole time in case Dawn took notice of it. She was never going to let Beth go with Gloria so they had no other choice but to sneak out. Gloria was already gone for half a day and she knew that Daryl would be frantically trying to get both of them out somehow. 

Gloria was now in the hallway that she had told Beth to meet her in, waiting for the younger to arrive. When she hears footsteps, Gloria retreats into a nearby room and hides behind the wall in case the person who was coming down the hall wasn’t Beth.

“Gloria?” she hears Beth call out in a whisper.

She peeks out into the hallway and only steps out when she sees Beth walking towards her. She takes notice that Beth was still wearing her scrubs. Gloria glances behind the younger then beckons her to follow her to the window at the end of the hall. 

“Before we go anywhere, here,” Beth says, holding out Gloria’s belt with her daggers, “I took them from the storage room before I came, that’s why it took me so long.”

Gloria chuckles and smiles at Beth as she takes the belt and equips them, “thanks, I never thought I’d see these again.”

The two of them walk towards the window and Gloria begins to try and pull the window open. Her actions cause Beth to frown.

“We’re jumping out of a window?” she exclaims, still keeping her voice down as much as she can.

“Not jumping, climbing. There’s a ledge right outside the window, more than big enough to fit both of us, help me get this open,” Gloria says, struggling to push the window open since it seems that the window has been kept closed for quite some time.

“What do we do when we’re on the ledge?” Beth asks as she begins to help Gloria with the window.

“Climb,” Gloria answers then continues when Beth gives her a bewildered expression, “we’ll climb up to the roof of the building using the drainage pipes that go along the wall.”

“Wait, we’re climbing **up**?” Beth questions, doubt in her voice, “what do we do after we’re on the roof, jump all the way down?”

“There’s a ladder connected to the roof that will lead us all the way down to the ground,” Gloria informs her, “just trust me on this, okay? I’ve done this a lot before.”

“You have?” Beth tilts her head.

“I used to work here as an intern before the outbreak.” Gloria says, “needed to sneak into the hospital for my shifts sometimes when I was late.”

“And you found this way yourself?” Beth says.

“No, a senior of mine, who was also Glenn’s buddy, he showed me this.” Gloria tells her.

A teasing smile spreads on Beth’s face, “was he just a senior?”

Gloria scoffs at her words, knowing what she was insinuating, “yes, he was just a senior. He didn’t like me that way, trust me.”

“Sounds to me like he did,” Beth coos.

“He was gay,” Gloria tells her matter-of-factly then groans, “why the hell isn’t this opening?!”

“We could just break it,” Beth suggests and then shrugs when Gloria gives her a look, “we’re gonna be long gone when they find it and it’s not like we’re going to try and come back here through it.”

“You’ve got a point,” Gloria says, then she looks around and points to the fire extinguisher in its glass case, “go get that fire extinguisher.”

“Won’t it trigger any alarms if we open the case?” Beth asks, hesitant.

“No, I’ve accidentally opened one before,” Gloria tells her, making Beth nod then she makes her way to the fire extinguisher.

“What’s going on here, ladies?” O’Donnell calls out as he rounds the corner of the hallway.

Beth and Gloria freeze when they see him, not expecting anyone to even be up at this hour. Beth backs up towards Gloria, not knowing what to do. Gloria protectively stands in front of her as O’Donnell walks towards them, noting that he has his gun in his holster. 

“I believe I asked you a question,” O’Donnell says as he approaches the women. 

“Nothing!” Beth says.

“Oh, this doesn’t look like nothing, didn’t sound like it was nothing either. You’re trying to escape,” he says, finally stopping in the centre of the hallway barely a few feet in front of them, “I caught you two, and this can be our little secret. You two wouldn’t want Dawn finding out, now would you?”

Gloria scowls at him in disgust, “let me guess, you want us to owe you somehow?” 

“You catch on quick,” O’Donnell says with a smirk, “I’ll cover for you two, no one but us three will even know about this.”

“You’re sick…” Beth hisses. 

“Beth, he might have a point,” Gloria says, shocking both Beth and O’Donnell, she fixes her posture and looks at O’Donnell with a smile as she takes a few steps towards him, “you’d really cover for us?”

“Gloria, what are you doing?!” Beth exclaims, not believing her ears.

“Oh, I’d definitely cover for you,” O’Donnell smirks as Gloria gets closure, daring enough to try and caress her cheek with his hand.

Just before his hand touches her face, Gloria quickly reaches down to take out one of her daggers and presses the blade on O’Donnell’s neck. He gasps, freezing at the metal on his skin. He looks at her with wide eyes as she glares at him.

“Beth, get the fire extinguisher and break the window,” Gloria tells the girl without looking over at her.

As Beth nods and rushes back over to the case holding the extinguisher, Gloria pushes O’Donnell back so that he has his back against the wall. Beth proceeds to hit the window with the fire extinguisher as hard as she can, only barely making a scratch in the glass. She continues to hit the same spot persistently.

“Don’t try anything,” Gloria warns O’Donnell, “it’ll take a what, two, three seconds to unbuckle your gun holster, another two to pull out your gun and shoot me, but it’ll only take me half a second to slice your carotid artery and you’ll be dead from blood loss in minutes. Do you want to challenge me on that?”

O’Donnell narrows his eyes at her, “okay, okay, you win.”

Gloria purses her lips when he gives up a little too easily, “hands above your head. Now.”

He lets out a frustrated breath but does as told. Gloria keeps her eyes on him as she uses her free hand to unbuckle the button on the gun holster.

“What the hell is this?!” Dawn shouts down the hall just as Gloria was about to take the gun from O’Donnell.

The sudden appearance of Dawn startles Gloria and Beth, they both glance towards the woman for a split second but that was just enough time for O’Donnell to pull out his gun. When Gloria looks back at O’Donnell, he had already pulled back the hammer. Beth screams as O’Donnell fires a shot. Gloria had tried to quickly dodged out of the way, however the bullet ended up piercing through her side. She drops to her knees, both of her hands clutching her side as blood seeps through between her fingers. Her movement and the sudden pain that erupted from the shot caused her to jerk back, slicing his neck in the process. The dagger in her hand that was pressed up against O’Donnell’s neck was now stained red with his blood as it dropped to the ground.

“Gloria!” Beth screams as she runs up to her friend, kneeling down beside her, unphased by the bloody mess that was now O’Donnell. 

Dawn looks at the scene in horror. O’Donnell was now laying in a pool of his own blood, Beth was crying as she held Gloria who was trying to keep conscious and trying to reassure Beth that she was going to be okay. Two other officers who had heard the gunshot had rushed in and were looking on at the scene from behind Dawn, waiting for her to tell them what to do. 

“Take care of O’Donnell’s body and make sure he doesn’t turn,” Dawn says to one of the officers then looks at the other, “bring the girls to separate rooms and get Dr. Edwards to take care of Gloria’s injury.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

Gloria was brought to an empty hospital room and as per Dawn’s instruction, she and Beth were both separated. Steven had come to patch up Gloria’s gunshot wound and had left shortly after, not answering any questions Gloria asked him about Beth. She was glad that the bullet had shot clean through as she didn’t want to go through the pain of having a bullet dug out of her body again. After a while of sitting alone in the room, the door opens and Dawn walks into the room with her arms crossed. 

“You and Beth know each other from before,” she says.

Gloria was seated on one of the patient beds as she eyes Dawn. She wanted to figure out whether or not Beth was the one who told her that or if Dawn was trying to pry information out of her. However, with Dawn being an experienced cop, it was difficult to read her.

“What makes you say that?” Gloria responds, crossing her arms. 

“Beth told me,” Dawn says then continues when Gloria narrows her eyes at her, “she said your group first came to her family farm and stayed there for a bit to find a little girl who had gone missing, then a herd came and tore the place apart and you had to run away until you all found a prison and that’s where you stayed until it got attacked. Believe me now?”

Gloria sighs and nods, there was no way Dawn could have known all of that without Beth telling her, “is Beth okay?”

“She’s fine.” Dawn says firmly, “why didn’t you tell us that you two knew each other?” 

“Because I didn’t know you, I **still** don’t. I didn’t want to give you anything to use against me,” Gloria tells her.

Dawn frowns at this, “use it against you? What kind of people do you think we are? We **aren’t** bad people.”

“Like I said, I don’t know you!” Gloria spits back, “there are all sorts of people out there and apparently, most of the ones who make it out there are the crazy or bad ones.”

“And where were you going to take Beth, huh? Like you said, there are more crazy, bad people out there, why would you risk having her out there when she can be safe and helping people here?” Dawn argues.

“Safe? Are you kidding me?!” Gloria seethes, getting up from the bed, ignoring the pain in her side, “Beth told me what one of your officers tried to do to her and she had to kill him to make him stop, O’Donnell was another scumbag that tried the same shit last night and that’s what got him killed. You really have the nerve to tell me that she’s safe here?!” 

“Gorman and O’Donnell… they were the problematic ones here…” Dawn begins to try and defend.

Gloria scoffs and points to Dawn accusingly, “and you’re not? The entire system you have here is bullshit, a complete abuse of power. You scare people into listening to you and doing whatever you want them to and they do it just because you have a gun.”

“We help people!” Dawn argues then lets out a frustrated sigh, “tell me then, what was your system at your prison?”

“We took people in, kept them fed, made sure they were **actually** safe,” Gloria says.

“And what did you want in return?” Dawn says.

“Nothing, we never asked them for anything,” Gloria says, the look on Dawn’s face told her that that definitely wasn’t the answer she was expecting nor did she believe it, “no one was ever forced to do anything they didn’t want. The people who wanted to help around, did, and they were more than happy to help. There was no owing system with us.”

“And… it worked?” Dawn asks, skeptical.

Gloria sighs, “it did until an asshole with an eyepatch decided to come by and destroy it…”

Dawn is about to respond when the door suddenly opens and another officer appears. 

“Lieutenant, can I speak with you for a moment, it’s urgent.” the officer says.

“Yeah, sure,” Dawn says as she begins to walk to the door and she glances back at Gloria, “we’re not finished yet. I’ll be back, don’t be getting any ideas.” 

Gloria mockingly salutes her as she leaves and then she sits down on the bed carefully. She sighs as she thinks of what to do. She had to get Beth out of this place, and now that Dawn knew, it would only be harder to sneak out. She walks towards the door and peeks out the small window on the door. Expectedly, there was a police officer standing outside her door so that there was no way she could leave the room without being seen. Even if she could, she would have to find the room that they had taken Beth so that they could leave together but now there would definitely be more patrols due to their last escape attempt. Gloria was certain that she would get more than an earful from both Glenn and Daryl when she got out since it’s already been more than two days since she was taken by Grady Memorial.

Gloria had been sitting in the room for hours now and with each passing moment, she was getting more and more anxious. Perhaps this was what Dawn wanted, keep her in solitary confinement so that she would become crazy and agree to staying in the hospital with them. Once she heard the door open though, Gloria stands up from the bed and she lets out a breath of relief when she sees Beth walk in with Dawn. 

“Pack up your things,” Dawn says with a heavy expression, “you’re both leaving.”

Gloria’s eyes widen in surprise at her words, “what?”

“Why?” Beth asks, frowning at Dawn also in confusion.

Dawn frowns as she glances at the two then a look of realization flashes on her face, “you two don’t know…”

“Know what?!” Gloria says, not meaning to raise her voice but she was getting impatient.

“Your group, they have three of my people and want to do a trade for the two of you.” Dawn explains.

Beth smiles at this but Gloria’s eyes narrow at Dawn, “and… you agreed?”

“Yes, I did, I want my people back, it’s as simple as that.” Dawn says, getting more frustrated at Gloria’s doubt in her, “just pack up your things and meet in H4, they’ll be here within the hour for the trade off.”

Without waiting for another word from the two, Dawn leaves the room. Beth grins happily at Gloria, making her smile back at the younger. The two of them go to retrieve their things from one of the supply closets. Beth lets out a small sigh as Gloria equips her belt of daggers. 

“Gloria?” Beth calls out in a small voice, continuing when Gloria hums in acknowledgement, “can you promise me something?”

The seriousness in her tone causes Gloria to look up at her, “what’s up?”

“If… if something happens at the trade… or in general, and I don’t make it-” Beth’s cut off by Gloria.

“Don’t say shit like that, nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Gloria frowns at her.

“Just listen, okay?!” Beth says, her eyes pleading, “if I don’t make it out, you gotta promise me that you’ll take care of Maggie… and Daryl… I don’t want them to miss me too much when I’m gone.”

“Beth… where’s this coming from?” Gloria asks.

She just shrugs, “it’s just in case something happens, that’s all.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Gloria puts her hands on Beth’s shoulder to make the younger look at her, “you’re gonna be the one to look after Maggie and tease her for crying when we get you back to her. You’ll take care of her because you’re strong. You’re stronger than you know, I see that.”

Beth smiles tearfully then suddenly wraps her arms around Gloria tightly, “thank you…”

“Silly girl…” Gloria chuckles as she hugs her back, “come on, they’re gonna be here soon.”

The two of them gather the rest of their things then go to meet up with Dawn, Steven, and three other police officers. Once they reach the others, Steven gives Gloria a small but full bag of medical supplies. She furrows her brows at him, confused as she doesn’t think that Dawn would allow her to take anything that didn’t belong to her. 

“I already asked Dawn, she says it’s okay.” Steven says, reading her mind.

“But… why?” Gloria asks, taking the bag hesitantly.

“To make up for me wanting to kill you when you got here.” Steven tells her honestly.

Gloria chuckles, accepting his words, “apology accepted.”

Once their end is ready for the meet up, Dawn speaks into the walkie attached to her shoulder, telling whoever was on the receiving end to put their weapons down. The other officers also lower their previously raised guns as the set of double doors at the end of the hall open. Two of Dawn’s men lead Rick, Daryl, Sasha, Tyreese and three others down the hall, stopping at an agreeable distance. There were two cops, a male and female, and another young man. Gloria recognizes the young man as the one she and Daryl had run into just before she got captured by Dawn, it seems that he was there to help them as well. Her eyes flash to Daryl, relieved to see him. She smiles at him as she sees how anxious he is, she wanted to let him know that she was fine, for the most part. Gloria then glances over at Rick who nods at her, silently asking if she’s unharmed and she nods back at him in reassurance. 

Rick takes his attention to Dawn, “they haven’t been harmed.”

“Where’s Lamson?” Dawn asks, a frown on her face when she only sees two of her people instead of three.

“Rotters got him,” the female cop says.

“We saw it go down,” the male cop adds.

“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that, he was one of the good guys,” Dawn says, her voice coated in emotion, “one of yours for one of mine.”

Rick ponders then nods, “alright.”

Gloria puts her hand on Beth’s upper back and gently pushes her front, “I want you to go first.”

Beth looks back at her with a frown and she shakes her head, “no…”

“Beth,” Gloria says affirmatively, “you go first, I’ll be right behind you.”

Reluctantly, Beth nods then turns around to walk towards Rick and the others. A cop from Dawn’s side takes Beth to meet up with Rick who had pushed the male cop to meet in the middle. Gloria lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding once the trade was made. Dawn takes Gloria’s arm and pulls her towards the middle as Daryl does the same with the female cop. Gloria walks past Dawn and rushes to Daryl’s side, hugging him tightly as he wraps his arms around her. 

“Don’ ya ever do anythin’ stupid like that again…” Daryl says lowly. 

Gloria nods as she pulls back, “I’m sorry.”

Daryl caresses her cheek with his thumb then reaches down to hold her hand, gently pulling her towards the exit. Rick exchanges a few words with Dawn as Gloria’s met with Sasha in an embrace and Tyreese smiles at her. She then turns her attention to the young man who smiles at her.

“This is Noah, he helped me when I was here,” Beth says.

“He helped us out with the trade too,” Daryl says.

Gloria smiles at him and nods, “thank you, Noah.”

He chuckles and shrugs, “as long as you guys got Beth back.”

“Now I just need Noah.” Dawn says suddenly, catching everyone’s attention.

The group was just about to make their leave when they all turned around at her words. A frown of disapproval on all of their faces at her request. 

“And then you can leave.” Dawn finishes.

Rick turns around and walks towards Dawn, “that wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Noah was my ward. Beth took his place and I’m losing her, so I need him back.” Dawn explains as calmly as possible, “my officers put their lives on the line to find him, one of them died.”

As the negotiation goes on, Noah is about to step out until Daryl gently pushes him back. Daryl steps out in his stead, angry at Dawn’s demand. He stands by Rick’s side, not letting Dawn take back Noah. The compromise becomes heated then Noah steps out before any weapons can be drawn. 

“It’s okay,” Noah says as he steps towards Rick, he pulls out the gun tucked into his belt and hands it to Rick, “I gotta do it.”

Beth frowns at this and shakes her head, “it’s not okay…”

Gloria looks at the younger, she sighs and puts her hand on her shoulder, “it’s not…”

“Wait!” Beth calls out as Noah walks towards Dawn. 

The others watch as she pulls Noah into a hug. Noah chuckles softly at her, patting her back and attempting to comfort her. Dawn says something to Noah but they aren’t able to hear it. Beth, however, seems to have heard what she said as her demeanor changes. She lets go of Noah, eyeing Dawn and steps towards her.

“Beth.” Gloria calls out, stepping towards her to bring her back to the group.

Gloria had a sinking feeling in her heart, she remembers the words Beth had said to her just before the meetup as they were gathering their things. She couldn’t let anything happen to Beth, nothing could ever happen to her. 

Beth says something to Dawn, making sure only she could hear before pulling out a pair of scissors she had hidden in her sleeve and stabs Dawn in the shoulder. Dawn lets out a pained gasp as she pulls out her gun. Gloria sees the action and rushes to pull Beth away but it was too late. The gunshot rings throughout the hospital and all Gloria could do was pull Beth’s now lifeless body towards her. Gloria falls to her knees as she cradles Beth in her arms, tears staining her face as she holds her.

“Beth… Beth no… please…” Gloria cries out in vain, she knew the girl was already gone, but she didn’t want to accept it.

There was another gunshot that followed shortly, but Gloria didn’t care. She felt numb, Beth was one of the people who were supposed to live and see the world become a better place. She was never supposed to die, not like this. She was almost back with her family, they were so close to getting her back. 

Gloria feels someone kneel in front of her and she sees Daryl, his face wet with tears and he says something she couldn’t hear. She figures that it’s something along the lines of ‘I got her’ as he picks up Beth’s body off the ground. She feels another person behind her and their hands on her shoulders, trying to lift her up. Gloria looks at the person, Sasha. 

“Let’s get out of here.” she says with a sad smile. 

Gloria doesn’t say anything, allowing Sasha to lead her out of the hospital. She didn’t even notice that they were outside until she felt the breeze of fresh air. She sees people coming towards the hospital entrance and that’s when she sees Maggie. Gloria gasps and turns around as Daryl is behind them all as he carries Beth, stopping both Daryl and Sasha from walking outside. 

“Daryl… you can’t… you can’t let Maggie see her like that… she can’t…” Gloria tells him, her voice shaking, she then looks at Sasha. 

She seems to have understood Gloria’s intent as she nods and goes out first. Sasha walks towards Maggie and Glenn to let them know the devastating news. Gloria squeezes her eyes shut when she hears Maggie’s cry of agony as she learns of her younger sister’s death. 

_“You gotta promise me you’ll take care of Maggie and Daryl, I don’t want them to miss me too much when I’m gone.”_

Beth’s words ring in Gloria’s mind once more. She opens her eyes and looks at the girl in Daryl’s arms. She looked so peaceful, like an angel. Gloria looks back towards Maggie who was now covered by Glenn as he holds her close. It broke her heart that she wasn’t able to bring Beth back to her alive, but she was determined more than ever to keep her promise to their sweet guardian angel. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

It was the day after they had lost Beth. Gloria had made sure not to let Maggie see her sister in that state as they buried her. After her funeral, Rick, Tyreese, Glenn, and Michonne had gone off with Noah to his old neighborhood. They wanted to see if there was anything worth scavenging, and Noah needed to try and find his family. They agreed as they knew Beth would have wanted to go with him. **  
**

Now, the others who hadn’t gone with Rick and Noah stayed behind to watch the area they had planned to camp for the night. Daryl was sitting on watch and Sasha as well but on the other side of the camp. Gloria was going around to make sure everyone was doing alright, given the circumstances. She had made her rounds with everyone except Daryl and Maggie. She walks up to Daryl with a water bottle and reaches out to him, offering him a water bottle.

“‘M okay.” he says, looking away from her.

“No, you’re not. Take it, Daryl.” Gloria insists.

“‘M fine!” he snaps, then he walks away from her without even glancing at her.

Gloria sighs as she watches him walk away from her. She knew he was hurting from their loss so she didn’t hold it against him for using that kind of tone with her. She knew how he was and he needed time and space to be alone. Gloria doesn’t chase after him and makes her way to the centre of their camp where Maggie was seated, her back leaning on the side of a car, tears staining her face. Gloria carefully sits down close to her and offers her the water bottle, part of her expecting Maggie to snap at her like Daryl did.

Deep down, Gloria felt that possibly Daryl and Maggie both resented her and hated her for not being able to get Beth out of Grady Memorial. They depended on her to get her out safely and she had let them both down. She let everyone down. She couldn’t even do anything when Dawn shot Beth. She’d reached them too late and Beth was already gone. This was all her fault. 

“Thank you…” Maggie whispers softly, but she hadn’t taken the bottle.

Gloria furrows her brows in confusion. Maggie stayed in her place, not looking at Gloria but it seems that she felt her confusion as Maggie took a deep breath.

“Thank you for trying… trying to protect me… trying to get Beth out…” Maggie says, her voice thick and full of emotion.

Gloria looks down and bites her lip to keep from crying, “I’m sorry…” 

Maggie only shook her head at her words, “you did your absolute best…” 

“But it wasn’t enough…” Gloria whispers, barely audible. 

Maggie reaches out and puts her hand on Gloria’s, making her look at her sister-in-law. She gives Gloria a tearful smile as if to let her know that it was going to be alright. Gloria forces a smile back at her, wanting to reassure her as well. The two sit in silence for a while until they hear the rumble of a vehicle in the distance then a car door opening and slamming shut in a matter of seconds.

“Gloria! Gloria!” Glenn shouts, his voice in a panic. 

She gets up at her brother’s call and rushes over to him, worry pumping through her veins. By the sound of Glenn’s voice, she knew that something must have gone wrong on their run to Noah’s old neighborhood so she grabs the bag of medical supplies before heading over.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Gloria asks once she meets up with Glenn. 

Glenn doesn’t answer her in words, instead he looks back towards the car they had taken for their run and Gloria follows his line of sight. Rick, Noah, and Michonne were carrying an unconscious Tyreese out of the car, his left arm was cut off from just below his elbow. Gloria curses under her breath as she rushes past Glenn to get to him.

“He got bit, we had to amputate… he’s lost a lot of blood,” Rick tells Gloria once he sees her.

She nods at the information and kneels down beside him, examining his wound once the man is on the ground. Gloria sees that they had tried to stop the bleeding as best they could with the resources they had. She removes the bedsheets and towels wrapping the stump where his hand used to be and to her dismay, she sees that it was still bleeding out. Gloria puts her middle and index finger on Tyreese’s neck to check for a pulse. 

“It’s weak, but there’s still a pulse, once I stop the bleeding we’re going to need to do a blood transfusion right away,” Gloria says, pulling out gauze from the medical supply bag, “does anyone but Sasha know Tyreese’s blood type? Or does anyone have negative O blood?”

She looks up at Rick as she presses the layers of gauze hard on Tyreese’s wound. She sees him look around at anyone who might have an answer but then he shakes his head at her when he doesn’t get one. 

“Glenn, ask Sasha what Tyreese’s blood type is but don’t let her come here, she can’t see this.” Gloria tells Glenn and he nods, following his sister’s instruction right away. 

After a while, the bleeding seems to have stopped but Gloria becomes frantic as she sees that Tyreese’s breathing had stopped as well. Rick seems to have noticed this as well as he frowns and feels the man’s neck for a pulse.

“Tyreese? Tyreese, stay with us!” he shouts.

“No… no no no…” Gloria sits up on her knees, “we’re not losing another one…’

She begins to perform CPR on Tyreese. The atmosphere is tense and frantic as the others watch on. Gloria hears Glenn calling out something in the background but doesn’t pay attention, she doesn’t stop even when she hears her name being called. They couldn’t lose another one, not like this. Sasha had already lost Bob to a bite, she couldn’t lose Tyreese too. 

Gloria didn’t even notice that Rick had moved from his spot by Tyreese’s side until a hand that was not his grabs hers, stopping her from continuing. She looks up to see Sasha looking down at her brother’s lifeless body. The look on her face broke Gloria’s heart and she lets out a shaky sigh. 

“He’s gone..” Sasha whispers, looking at Tyreese’s face as she pulls out her knife.

“You don’t have to…” Gloria says softly.

“I do…” is all Sasha says before she pushes the blade into his temple to prevent him from turning.

Grief looms over the group as they have lost yet another one from their group. After burying Tyreese and putting him to rest, they decided to follow Eugene’s words and continue towards Washington for a chance to survive and find refuge. The group knew that there was no cure or anything to bring the world back to how it used to be, apparently Eugene lied about that. However, he was still certain that there was a place for them there. Without many other choices, Rick decided that that was where they would head. 

As days turned to weeks, the group gave up on their cars as their fuel ran completely dry. Their sources of food and water also became scarce, Daryl had been having trouble hunting anything in the dry conditions everything was in. It appeared that it hadn’t rained for weeks on end. Now the group’s main source of food were the acorns Gloria was able to dig up. She made it her mission to keep the group as well fed as possible since she seemed to be having better luck than Daryl when it came to food at the moment. He still hadn’t spoken to her ever since he brushed her off the day Tyreese died. 

Gloria was having an internal struggle with herself. She wanted to help the group as much as possible since she feels like she failed them all. First being unable to get Beth out of Grady Memorial, and then being unable to save Tyreese. She hated herself and she felt completely useless. Her inner demons told her that Maggie, Sasha, and Daryl hated her as well for letting them down. Gloria didn’t want to talk to them about it, she didn’t want to make it all about her and how she was feeling. She didn’t want to be selfish that way, if they hated her and they felt better hating her then she would take it, even if it killed her inside. 

“Leave me alone.” Daryl says as Gloria tries again to get him to drink some water. 

“I’m not leaving you alone until you take at least a sip,” she persists, urging him to take the bottle, “when’s the last time you had any water, huh? You can’t keep going on like this!”

“I said leave me alone!” Daryl snaps, hitting the bottle away from him.

Gloria gasps as Daryl had hit the bottle a little too hard, causing it to fall out of her hands. She misses the regret that flashed in his eyes as she looks at the bottle. He sighs deeply then storms away from her. Gloria bites her lip, trying not to cry as she picks up the bottle. She walks back over to the group and sees Glenn looking at her worriedly. She gives him a tight smile as she throws him the bottle then signs to him that she’s going out to scavenge for food again. Without waiting for him to respond, Gloria turns around and escapes into the woods. 

She’d been out in the woods for at least an hour now. She had actually managed to dig up quite a few acorns despite the dryness in the dirt, at least she was able to provide them all something. 

Gloria was now making her way back to the camp, still looking out for any potential squirrel-dug holes. She’d been so immersed in looking on the ground that she hadn’t noticed anything behind her until she heard the crunch of dried leaves. Gloria turns around and gasps, stumbling back as a walker snarls at her. It reaches out to her, grabbing her right arm while she pulls a dagger out from her belt. Before she was able to kill it though, she falls back as she trips on a rock. The walker falls with her as its grip on her is tight. Gloria lets out a cry of pain as she feels something sharp cut into her left forearm from her fall. 

“Gloria!” she hears her brother’s voice call as he rushes towards her.

Glenn quickly pulls out his knife and sinks it into the back of the walker’s head, roughly pulling it off his sister. He carefully grabs her arm and pulls her to stand up. Gloria picks up her dagger that she dropped when she fell, placing it back in its sheath.

“Are you okay? Are you bit?” Glenn asks, his eyes full of worry.

“No, just cut myself on some sharp rocks or something,” Gloria says as she examines her now bloody left forearm, “what are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you, you’ve been gone for a while,” Glenn says then frowns at the sight of her injury, “are you okay?”

Gloria tightens her jaw at his question then nods to let him know that she was physically fine, “yeah…”

“Let’s get you back to camp and fix up that cut,” Glenn says, then he turns around to start heading back to the camp. 

The mention of the camp and remembering what happened with Daryl earlier threw her off. She couldn’t even go out to the woods on her own anymore without anything happening to her. Gloria hated that she had become so weak and useless, constantly needing people to save her. Her emotions were getting too overwhelming as she remembers how she sees everyone looking at her, or rather how her mind made her think they were all looking at her.

“Glenn…” Gloria calls out in a soft voice, making him glance back at her, “I’m… I’m not okay…” 

“Hey…” Glenn walks back up to Gloria and carefully wraps his arms around her as she begins to cry, “it’s okay… let it out.”

Gloria clings to Glenn as she weeps, all of her emotions that had built up from the last few weeks catching up with her. Glenn’s hand cradles her head, his other stroking her back soothingly.

“They hate me…” she whimpers, “they all hate me…”

“What are you talking about? No, they don’t,” Glenn tells her, his voice still soft.

“Yes they do! You don’t see how they look at me… I’m a useless, shit doctor who can’t do anything right… I couldn’t help Beth and I couldn’t save Tyreese… I let them all down…” she sobs, her body shaking.

“Gloria, look at me,” Glenn says, pulling away from her and his hands are on her shoulders, making her look at him, “you’re not useless, and they don’t hate you. Trust me, they don’t. You know that I can’t lie to you.”

“You can’t lie, period…” Gloria sniffles and looks down, “I… I thought about just leaving…”

Glenn frowns at her, “what?”

“I didn’t think anyone needed me or wanted me around…” Gloria says, embarrassed and ashamed at her own confession. 

“You really don’t see how important you are to the group, do you?” Glenn sighs, “listen, you and Rick are the only ones holding this group together. If it weren’t for you and your weird knowledge of squirrels, we’d all be starving. This group needs you, **I** need you.”

Gloria looks up at Glenn, “really?” she says in a small voice.

“Really.” Glenn smiles at her reassuringly, “are you ready to go back to the camp? I can bring you your kit if you aren’t.”

Gloria shakes her head then wipes her tears away with her good hand, “I’m good.”

“You sure?” Glenn asks.

“Yeah, plus I want to see the worry and regret on Daryl’s face when he sees I’m hurt,” Gloria says as she starts walking back to the camp with Glenn, she was only half joking as she wanted to put up a strong front for Glenn.

Glenn chuckles at that, “don’t be too hard on him.”

Gloria hums in agreement, knowing that Daryl was going through a lot. It still hurt her that he was shutting her out and snapping at her whenever she was trying to help. When the siblings got back to the camp, they saw that the others had gathered wood for the campfire that was to be lit when it got dark enough. Gloria grabs the bag of medical supplies and sits on a part of the road that wasn’t too far from the group. She noticed that Daryl was sat by Carol, neither of them saying anything to one another. 

She takes her focus to her injury, she grimaces at the look of it. There was a gash on her forearm, thankfully it wasn’t too deep. Gloria guessed that she fell on a broken bottle as she began to take out small bits of green glass from her skin surrounding the wound. After removing the fragments, Gloria gets a swab of alcohol and gently dabs it on her wounds, hissing at the sting from the alcohol. On the plus side, the wound wasn’t bad enough to need stitches. 

“That looks painful,” Carol says once she made her way over to Gloria, sitting down beside her, “here, let me help.”

Gloria isn’t able to say anything before Carol reaches over and carefully takes her hand, letting it rest in her lap as she gets a bandage from the medical supply bag. Gloria smiles at Carol as she helps her bandage up her wound, appreciating the care she was receiving from her friend.

“You know,” Carol starts, “Daryl’s sorry for how he treated you earlier.”

Gloria nods and looks down, she was slightly embarrassed that the others saw what had happened, “I know, can’t help but be a little upset by it though…”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be upset by it, but you know Daryl and how he is. Just like you, he’s going through a lot. Beth’s death… it took a toll on him.” Carol points out, “give him some time, he’ll come back to you.”

“Thanks,” Gloria says, smiling at Carol after she had finished bandaging her forearm. 

Carol smiles back at her and pats her shoulder. Gloria then remembers that she hadn’t given the others her collection of acorns yet. She passes them to Carol who helps her take them to the campfire for roasting. Gloria looks around the camp and her eyes catch Daryl’s for a split second as he turns away from her once she looks his way. She sighs but then she notices that he was chewing on a twig. Suddenly, a thought pops in her head and she jumps up and goes over to Glenn.

“Glenn, give me an empty bottle,” Gloria tells him. 

Glenn furrows his brows at her but gives her one anyway and no one is able to stop her from running off into the woods again. She looks around at the trees then walks up to one, pulling a dagger from her belt and wedges the blade into the bark. She pries the outer bark off the tree then proceeds to dig into the centre of the tree until a thin liquid begins to ooze out. Gloria then takes the bottle Glenn had given her and tries to get as much of the liquid inside as possible.

“Why’d you run off like that?” Glenn asks her once he finds her in the woods, he approaches her, “what are you doing?”

“Gathering tree sap,” Gloria says simply, “it’ll really help with our water situation, it’s healthy and apparently very nutritious.”

“Where’d you learn that?” Glenn says with a smile as he crosses his arms, he felt proud that his sister was able to snap back to her normal self so quickly.

“You remember the little girl I took care of at the hospital? The one with all the nature books?” Gloria asks, “she taught me that, said that it would be useful if I ever went camping but for some reason had no water.”

“She must be prepared for the outbreak,” Glenn chuckles, he walks up to her, “need any help?”

“I got it, you go back first, I’ll head back right after I get at least half a bottle,” Gloria tells him. 

Glenn nods, trusting her word, he goes back to the camp. Gloria waits for the bottle to fill up as much as possible before the sun goes down then takes the bottle away from the tree, screwing the lid on then heads back to the group. Rick looks at Gloria expectedly and she assumes that Glenn had told him about the sap. She gives him the bottle and he smiles at her, thanking her silently before she heads back to where she had put her things by Glenn. As the sap was getting passed around, Gloria started to finally feel a little more useful than she had. Maybe she was wrong about how the group saw her. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

The weather was not kind to the group as they all travelled down the road. It was scorching hot with the sun beating down on them. The tree sap Gloria had gathered for the group could only do so much for their hydration as she was only able to collect just a little more than half a bottle. Daryl was still pushing himself away from Gloria and even the rest of the group. Glenn had tried to offer him water but like he did with Gloria, Daryl brushed him off completely. 

“Tell ‘em I went lookin’ for water.” Daryl tells Abraham then he walks off into the woods. 

Gloria sighs as she watches him leave the group. Carol pats her shoulder as she walks beside her, Gloria glances at her and smiles softly. Daryl still hadn’t spoken to her yet, it seemed as though he was avoiding her whenever she tried to approach him. She tried to brush it off as him not wanting to lash out at her again, but it still stung. 

“What’s that?” Glenn says, looking in the distance.

In the middle of the road, there seemed to be a package of something that looked like bottles. As the group came closer, they saw that they were indeed bottles full of water. They all circled around it cautiously, not knowing what to do with it. They were all on borderline dehydration so the fact that they had bottles upon bottles of water in front of them was beyond tempting. Rick goes up to the bottles and picks up the paper on top of it. 

“‘From a friend’.” Rick reads, then scoffs and looks around. 

Shortly, Daryl comes out from the woods and he has a questioning face as he approaches Rick who hands him the paper. Gloria frowns when she notices burn marks on his left hand, he’s never had those before and they looked rather fresh. 

“Well, what else are we gonna do?” Tara asks, looking around the group.

“Not this,” Rick says firmly, “we don’t know who left it.”

“If that’s a trap, we already happen to be in it. But I, for one, would like to think it is indeed from a friend.” Eugene says, his eyes never leaving the bottles of water.

“What if it isn’t? What if they put something in it?” Carol says.

“There’s no way this is safe, it’s too good to be true.” Gloria says, shaking her head. 

Eugene doesn’t heed their word and goes for the water, picking up a bottle and opening it, calling it ‘quality assurance’. Rosita and Tara call out to him in protest and as he is about to take a drink, Abraham knocks it out of his hand, the contents of the bottle spilling all over the ground. 

“We can’t.” Rick says, eyeing Eugene.

There is tension within the group as they all stay silent, then they all look up as thunder rumbles. Soon enough, it begins to rain on them. Rick instructs them all to use anything they have to collect the rainwater. However, before they were able to, another roar of thunder sounds and in the distance, they all see dark storm clouds rolling in. 

“There’s a barn!” Daryl shouts to Rick over the sound of pouring rain.

“Where?” he shouts back.

The group follows Daryl’s lead to a barn nearby. Rick opens the door and he, Maggie, Carol, and Abraham scope out the place to make sure no one is inside. Once it’s cleared, the rest of the group file inside. The group dry themselves off then get ready to rest for the night. Daryl had started a fire for the group on one side of the barn and when he deemed it good enough, he went off to sit by the wall across the door with his crossbow. Gloria rummages through the bag of medical supplies, taking out an alcohol swab, a bandaid and an ointment for cuts and burns Steven had packed for her. She makes her way over to Daryl and kneels down beside him. 

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Gloria tells him, her voice soft, “but let me take care of the burns on your hand. The last thing you want is for it to get infected.” 

Daryl glances at her then down at the ground again, still not saying anything. However, he nods, granting her permission to help him with his burns. A small smile tugs on Gloria’s lips then she carefully takes his hand and places it in her lap. She opens the alcohol swab and proceeds to clean the burn, furrowing her brow when she sees that it’s a circular burn, like that of a cigarette. She sighs but doesn’t say anything about it, not wanting Daryl to pull away from her any more than he already has. Once cleaned, Gloria opens the tube of ointment and squeezes a small amount onto her finger, then gently dabs it onto the wound. She then patches up the burn with a bandaid. 

“All done,” she says with a small smile as she looks at him.

“Thanks…” Daryl says, biting his lip hesitantly.

Gloria closes the tube of ointment then hands it to him, “I’ll leave this with you, there’s more bandaids in the bag if you need to change it.” 

Without waiting for him to respond, she gets up and walks towards the door. A part of her was hoping that Daryl would grab her hand and pull her back to sit with him, but all she felt was disappointment when he didn’t. They’d drifted so far apart in the last few weeks, it was almost as if they reverted back to when they had just met at the quarry. 

Gloria makes her way to the door, wanting to tighten the chain that was holding it together so that the others wouldn’t be disturbed by its constant clanging. She is about to reach up to grab the chain when she sees a herd of walkers just outside the barn. She lets out a gasp at the sight, then pushes the door closed with her entire body. 

“Shit!” Gloria curses as the walkers had made it to the door, pushing and trying to get into the barn. 

She knew she wouldn’t be able to hold the door on her own, there were way too many walkers. Daryl was instantly by her side, pushing the door when he saw her struggling. Her eyes connect with his and he nods at her, reassuring her silently that they would be okay. Soon, they’re joined by Maggie, Glenn, Carol, Rick, Michonne, Sasha, Abraham, Rosita, Tara, Noah, Eugene, Gabriel, and Carl. Their entire group, minus Judith, were working together as an entire unit to keep the barn safe from walkers. 

—

The morning was peaceful compared to the night before. The storm had passed in the night, allowing the group to get some rest. Gloria’s eyes flutter open at the sound of birds chirping outside the barn, a familiar scent of smoke and leather consuming her. She sits up and rubs her eyes before realizing that there was something covering her for warmth as she slept. A smile tugs at her lips as she recognizes the angel wings on the leather vest. Gloria looks around and spots Daryl awake and fidgeting with his crossbow. Holding the vest in her hands, she gets up and makes her way over to him.

“Thanks,” she says as she hands it to him.

Daryl stops fidgeting with his weapon and looks at her for a moment before shrugging and taking it back from her, “‘ts nothin’… ya looked cold…”

Gloria smiles as she watches him shrug the vest back on his shoulders, “I was, but then I wasn’t, thanks to you.”

He lets out a small scoff but doesn’t look at her, seemingly avoiding her gaze. He is about to say something else when the door to the barn opens and Maggie calls their attention. Shortly after, she brings in a man who introduces himself as Aaron. The sudden appearance of a complete stranger rattles them all and they are now on full alert. 

It turns out that the group was being watched by Aaron and his friend. Maggie and Sasha decided to bring him in after he approached them both, only to be interrogated by Rick. Aaron told them all about his camp, a community called Alexandria, and wanted to bring them all back with him but after Terminus and what happened at Grady Memorial, none of them were trusting his word. Rick made this clear when he punched the man in the face. After interrogation and sending out a group to see if what he was saying about the routes and cars were true, Rick decided that they would take a look at the so-called community. Now, at night, they were on the road. Glenn, Rick, Michonne, and Aaron were in one car while the rest of the group were in an RV provided by Aaron, driven by Abraham. 

“Shit!” Abraham swears as he slams the breaks on the RV.

The road ahead of them was swarmed with walkers, Glenn’s car was ahead of them and had run into multiple walkers. Daryl was in the seat beside Abraham holding the map and navigating him on where to drive for a detour, hopefully to meet the others. 

“Look!” Maggie points at the flare that was shot in the distance, “you think that’s them?”

“Only one way to find out,” Abraham says as he starts to drive in the direction of the flare. 

They soon come across a herd surrounding a car and Gloria notices underneath the car is a man struggling to hide from the walkers. As the RV approaches, the walkers are attracted by the headlights and begin to make their way towards the vehicle. 

“We gotta help that guy,” Gloria says, putting attention on the man trapped under the car, “he must have been the one who shot the flare.”

Abraham looks at her then nods, without saying another word, he gets up from the driver’s seat and heads out the RV, smashing all and any walkers that come near him. The others follow suit, killing off all the walkers in the area before helping the man under the car. 

“It’s okay, they’re all dead, you can come out,” Gloria says, crouching to look at the man. 

“I can’t… my foot…” the man whimpers. 

She looks at the man’s foot and gasps when she sees that it’s trapped under the back wheel of the car. Daryl and Abraham take action immediately, carefully lifting and pushing the wheel off his foot, they drag him out from under the car. They thought it best that they would get somewhere safe before Gloria took a look at his foot and so they found an empty garage-like building and made their camp there. They had set up a makeshift bed and leg rest for the man to rest on as Gloria examined his foot in the second room.

“Looks like your ankle is broken,” Gloria says, then she looks around finding some wooden sticks and a cloth, “this is gonna hurt, I’m sorry in advance.”

“I don’t think it’ll hurt as much as when it actually happened,” the man chuckles, “I’m Eric by the way.”

“Gloria,” she says, “and I wouldn’t be so sure about it not hurting as much, just brace yourself.”

Eric is about to say something when he cries out in pain when Gloria begins to wrap his foot in the cloth with the sticks to keep his ankle in place. She gives him an ‘I told you so’ look and chuckles when he scoffs playfully at her. 

“Thank you, for saving my life and helping me with my ankle,” Eric says with a smile.

“It’s not a problem, treating a broken ankle is a lot better than the other things we’ve seen,” Gloria smiles back at him.

“I’m glad you decided not to leave,” Eric says sincerely.

Gloria frowns at his words in confusion, “what?”

“Alright, I’m gonna be very honest with you right now, Aaron and I were listening to you and your group before we approached you,” Eric says carefully then adds quickly, “but only because we weren’t sure whether you were good people or not! We couldn’t risk coming up to you without knowing.”

“That’s totally an invasion of privacy… this better not be a habit in your camp.” Gloria eyes him warily.

“It isn’t, I promise.” Eric says, “anyway… I just wanted to tell you that I think Glenn’s right, this group needs you. And right now, I may be biased because you helped me with my ankle, but I really do think it’s a good thing you decided to stay and not leave.”

Gloria ponders for a moment before chuckling, “if I left, you would have been fine regardless, Maggie knows how to do this too.” 

“I think I would have tried to track you down if you really did leave,” Eric grins at her.

She rolls her eyes at him then pats his knee, “I’ll let you rest.”

Without another word, Gloria gets up and walks out to the other room where the others are. Soon, Rick and the others arrived at the building. Gloria was relieved to see Glenn safe. Aaron had reunited with his boyfriend, Eric, and Rick had finally decided that they were trustworthy enough to take them back to their community in the morning. Gloria decided that she would help take first watch that night as she now sat outside in front of the door. An hour into her shift, the door opens and Daryl walks out. 

Gloria looks at him in confusion, “what are you doing?”

He leans on the wall, not responding to her question, “ya were gonna jus’ leave…?”

A pang of guilt hits her as she realizes that Daryl must have overheard her conversation with Eric earlier. She looks away and sighs, silently giving him his answer, but he wanted her to say it. He goes to her and pulls her up by her arm, his grip gentle but firm.

“Ya were gonna jus’ leave without sayin’ anythin’ to me?” Daryl asks again.

“I thought about it…” Gloria says, unable to look at him. 

“Why?” he asks, frowning.

Gloria finally looks at him, but she didn’t know what to tell him. She couldn’t say that a large reason was that he pushed her away and ignored her when she kept trying to reach out, she knew exactly what that would do to him. Gloria knew very well that he felt guilty for Beth, just as much as she did, and his way of coping was to push everyone away. She was sure he knew how much it hurt her, but she also understood why he still did it. 

“Was it ‘cause o’ me…?” Daryl mutters, looking at her, guilt in his eyes.

“No,” Gloria says almost immediately. 

The look on Daryl’s face told her that he didn’t believe her. He knew that when he pushed her away, it hurt her and he hated himself even more for it. Whenever Gloria tried to reach out to him, all he wanted to do was go to her and let her soothe his pained heart. The only place he wanted to be was in her arms as she comforted him and chased all of his guilt away. But he couldn’t allow that, he felt that he didn’t deserve any of that. Her affection, forgiveness, love. He had let them down, he let them all down. If it wasn’t for him, Beth wouldn’t have gotten taken by the people at Grady Memorial, and she would have never met Dawn, and Dawn wouldn’t have ever had the chance to kill her. 

That guilt weighed heavily in Daryl’s heart and he felt the need to let it eat away at him, because he felt that he deserved it. He couldn’t let Gloria talk him out of it. He knew that she was the only one who would be able to, so he had to push her away, but when Daryl hit the bottle out of her hands that day, he realized that he had almost hit her. And that terrified him more than anything. Daryl was so afraid that he would some day turn into his dad, which was why he did everything he could to avoid being anywhere near Gloria. If he ever hurt her, he’d never forgive himself. 

“I pushed ya away…” Daryl mumbles sadly.

“No matter how many times you push me away, I’ll always come back to you, Daryl,” Gloria reassures him.

“I almost hit ya…” he says, his voice small but thick with emotion as the tears in his eyes threaten to fall.

“But you didn’t,” she says back, taking a step towards him and caressing his face with her hand, “you’d never hurt me.” 

That was all it took for Daryl to break down, he lets out a pained whimper as he repeats her words, “I’d never hurt ya…”

He allows himself to lean into her as she wraps her arms around him. He rests his head on her shoulder as he cries, letting out his emotions as he holds onto her for dear life. Gloria holds him close to her, rubbing small soothing circles on his back. She lets him cry in her arms for as long as he needs and soon, his sobs die down to small shaky breaths. Daryl pulls away from her with a small sniffle and Gloria smiles softly at him.

“Feeling better?” she asks, her head slightly tilted to the side.

Daryl nods shyly, as if embarrassed that he cried in front of her. Gloria gently puts her hand on the side of his face, stroking his cheek with her thumb lovingly and he can’t help but lean into her touch. 

“I love ya.” he says, looking her in the eyes. 

“I love you, too.” Gloria says, smiling lovingly at him.

He finally breaks into a small smile at her words then pulls her into his embrace, wrapping his arms around her body. She snakes her arms around his waist, her head resting on his chest. They stay like that in a comforting silence for a small moment.

“Daryl…” Gloria calls out softly, but she doesn’t move from her spot, “do you have any more cigarettes?” 

Her question causes him to frown in confusion and he looks down at her, “what?”

Gloria pulls away from him to look up at him, “do you have any more cigarettes?”

“I do… why?” he answers, hesitant.

She lifts her hand with her palm up, “give them to me.”

Daryl furrows his brows even more, “but ya don’ smoke.”

“I don’t, but you do,” Gloria says, making him even more confused, she sighs softly, “the burns on your hand… I know where they’re from.”

Daryl purses his lips, unable to say anything as a guilty look falls on his face once more. He hurt himself, he burned himself with a cigarette on purpose and she knew. He didn’t want her to be able to figure it out but he knew that she was smart enough to put the pieces together. Without another word, Daryl reaches into his pocket and puts his remaining cigarettes in her hand. 

Gloria looks down at them, “the next time you want a smoke, you ask me, and I’m going to check your hands before and after.”

He nods obediently. Even though he did feel like he was being treated like a child, deep down he felt oddly warm. No one but Gloria has ever shown this much love, care, and respect for him, and it made his heart swell. 

“I love ya.” he says again.

“For taking away your cigarettes?” Gloria tilts her head, slightly confused, she thought he would get upset.

“For carin’ so much.” he says with a side smile then he leans in to kiss her lips gently.

Gloria smiles into his lips and kisses him back, wrapping her arms around his neck. She was aware that she was on watch duty, but her and Daryl needed this time alone together. Somehow, she just knew that their group would be safe that night and she had a good feeling that their journey to this Alexandria place would be a good place for them all to start something new. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!
> 
> I already have a large portion of this series posted on Tumblr and decided to post it here as well! I'll be posting a chapter every day until I'm caught up with what I have on Tumblr! Any comments are always appreciated!

At sunrise, Rick and the others had set out to Alexandria as they did not want to waste any time. With Rick in the car with Michonne, Carl and Judith, and Abraham in the RV with everyone else, they were well on their way to the community. They get there with little to no complications, the only one being the RV’s battery dying. Glenn was the one who solved that though as he had remembered Dale teaching him that there was always a spare battery in one of the RV’s compartments. 

Now, the group stands outside the gates of the camp while Aaron helps Eric walk towards the gates. The gate begins to slide open and they’re greeted with a rather scared looking man. He only looked even more scared when Daryl shot a possum that had knocked into a few of the garbage cans, collecting his catch and calling it dinner. Aaron reassures the man that they are good people and he allows the group into Alexandria with all of their weapons. Another person from their community had come out to bring Eric to their infirmary as Aaron brought the group deeper into Alexandria.

As Aaron had described, this place definitely was a community. There were solar panels, large houses built side by side, a lake in the middle of everything, and even a gazebo to overlook the lake. Everything looked completely untouched, as if walkers didn’t exist and the end of the modern world didn’t happen. 

“Are you guys seeing all of this?” Gloria asks, not believing her eyes as she looks around.

“I didn’t think this kind of place would still be around,” Maggie says, also looking around.

“This can work,” Glenn says with a smile, “we can make this work.”

“Seems a bit too good to be true though…” Gloria says, looking over at Daryl, “doesn’t it?”

He looks back at her and purses his lips but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he reaches out to her and grabs her hand in reassurance. Gloria glances down at their now intertwined hands and then back at him, smiling softly. The group stops walking as Aaron brings them to the front of a large house.

“Wait here for a bit, I’ll go and let Deanna know that you’re here. I think she’s going to want to speak to each and every one of you individually,” Aaron explains then with Rick’s nod of approval, he goes into the house.

Gloria furrows her brows at this, remembering that this is also what happened at Terminus, “I don’t like this…”

Glenn puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles at her reassuringly, “I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t get that vibe here. It might actually go okay for once.” 

“I hope so…” she sighs, although she didn’t get a bad feeling from the place, she still didn’t like that the people in the community were ogling at them as if they were zoo animals. 

Rick was the first to go into the house after Aaron came back out and let them all know that Deanna, the community’s apparent leader, was ready to see them. They were all relieved to see Rick come out of the house unharmed and then Daryl was next to go in. It wasn’t until he came back out of the house that Gloria’s nerves went down slightly. She didn’t know what it was about it, she didn’t see the people as threatening or dangerous. They were just going about their day while sneaking looks at their group but nothing menacing. Gloria was next to go in after Daryl as per Glenn’s instruction and he would follow suit. 

“Deanna is a very kind and reasonable woman,” Aaron says as he walks Gloria to the living room of the house, he seems to have noticed how nervous she was and chuckles, “you can relax, you know.”

“I know… it’s just for some reason, I can’t shake the feeling of this being like going in for a job interview,” Gloria chuckles nervously and shrugs.

“Well, you’re not too far off.” Aaron smiles at her.

Before Gloria could ask him what he meant, Aaron had already knocked on the open door to the living room and directed her inside before taking his leave. She takes a few steps into the room and is greeted by an older woman with a smile. 

“Hi, I’m Deanna. Pleased to meet you.” she says, extending her hand out for a polite shake.

Gloria takes her hand and shakes it firmly but before she’s able to introduce herself, a person sitting at the dining table catches her eye. She lets out a small gasp and her eyes widen at the sight. Deanna furrows her brows in her change of expression and follows her line of vision.

“Gena….” Gloria calls out.

The woman at the table looks up at the sound of her name and a look of shock overcomes her, “Gloria…” 

Gena gets up from her seat and quickly makes her way over to Gloria, stopping in her tracks only a few steps away from her.

“I take it you two know each other?” Deanna says, a thoughtful smile on her face.

Gena nods without looking at Deanna, “she’s my little sister.”

Gloria smiles tearfully at her, relieved that she was alive and well. The sisters were never too close, even if their five year difference wasn’t a large age gap. Gloria couldn’t even remember how long it’s been since she hugged Gena, they’d spent most of their time arguing with each other. Glenn would always be the middleman and break up their fights, knowing that both sisters would listen to him rather than each other. Regardless of their strained relationship though, Gloria was happy that Gena was safe and alive.

“Glenn’s outside waiting if you want to see him,” Gloria says, gesturing outside knowing that Gena would want to see their brother.

“I’ll see him after,” Gena says, a stern smile on her face, “I still need to help Deanna with the interviews.”

“I won’t hold you up for too long so you can catch up with your family,” Deanna says with a chuckle, then she looks to Gloria and gestures to the single seater chair in front of a coffee table, “please, take a seat and we’ll get started.”

Gloria nods and goes to sit down on the chair Deanna had pointed to while the older woman goes to toggle a camcorder on a tripod.

“You don’t mind if our conversation is recorded, do you?” she asks, then she presses the button to record when Gloria shakes her head, “excellent, now… according to Rick and Daryl, you’ve all been out there since the beginning?”

Gloria nods in thought, “for the most part, yeah… we’ve moved around camps when places got overrun.” 

“Where did you stay?” Deanna asks.

“At first a quarry camp, then a farm…” Gloria says then glances at Gena sheepishly, “then a prison…”

“A prison?” Gena questions, judgement in her voice. 

“It was secure, we had fences, walls-” Gloria was cut short of her defense.

“Still! A prison?!” Gena repeats, disgust now evident in her voice.

“That’s enough, Gena. I’m sure they didn’t have much choice,” Deanna says in Gloria’s defense, “and who were you before all of this started?”

“I…” Gloria hesitates as she glances at Gena then at the ground, “I was a student…”

“What did you study?” Deanna presses.

“Health Sciences.” Gloria says, still not looking up at the two.

“She was studying to become a doctor.” Gena reveals. 

“A doctor?” Deanna says, her voice sounding pleasantly surprised, “do you have any field experience?”

“I… I interned as a nurse, if that counts…” Gloria shrugs.

“What Deanna wants to know is if you’ve ever saved anyone.” Gena says, matter-of-factly, crossing her arms. 

Gloria finally looks up at them and fidgets with her fingers, “I helped stop someone’s bleeding once.”

“Tell me what happened,” Deanna says, a warm smile on her face. 

Gloria takes a deep breath before continuing, “when we got to the prison, we had to clear it out so that we could make it into a home or something like that, but things happened and… one of our people got bit, I’m guessing near his ankle, I didn’t see it really…”

“Bit? By a roamer?” Gena frowns at this, doubt in her voice.

“Yeah, by a roamer… we call them walkers, anyway… Rick took the initiative and cut off his leg just below the knee and brought him back to the cell blocks and that’s where I stopped his bleeding.” Gloria explains, her eyes kept glancing back down at the ground.

“And he lived?” Deanna asks.

“He did… for another few months…” Gloria sighs softly, “he didn’t make it out of the prison…”

Gena lets out a sigh and shakes her head, “what did I always teach you about wasting time? Why would you tell us a story about saving someone who’s already dead? If he’s dead, it doesn’t matter if you saved him or not.”

“It **did** matter!” Gloria says back, raising her voice.

“He’s **dead**.” Gena points out, glaring at her younger sister, “how does it matter if someone you once saved is dead?”

“Because he saved Glenn,” Gloria retorts, getting worked up and taking Gena aback, “his name was Hershel and he was a doctor. A flu pandemic hit the prison and we didn’t have enough antibiotics to go around, if you got it, you had to just go through with it… and that meant possibly dying, choking on your own blood. Me and Glenn got it… and it progressed faster with him… if I didn’t save Hershel and stop his bleeding, he wouldn’t have been able to save Glenn. So don’t you **dare** tell me that saving him didn’t matter!”

Deanna nods at her words as she stands in the tense silence between the sisters. Gena didn’t know what to say to that, and Gloria was visibly angered by her sister’s words about her fallen friend. 

“I’m sorry about your loss, Gloria,” Deanna starts, “I feel that you are a person who does whatever you can to help a person, am I right?”

“I try…” Gloria says.

“I’d like to offer you a position as a medic in our infirmary. With your medical background and willingness to help people, I think you’ll work wonderfully with our head doctor, Pete.” Deanna smiles, “what do you say?”

Gloria stares at the woman, searching for any ill-intent but finds none. She figures that this was their way of paying admission into the community, giving back by working for her. Gloria thinks back to what she saw on the streets; peace and quiet, children playing innocently, a community protected by walls, and not a walker in sight. Having been on the road for weeks on end, this was the type of place her family needed, Carl and Judith can have an actual proper childhood. Glenn and Maggie could start their own family without needing to worry about whether or not they were safe. Even if Gloria didn’t like it here because of the people staring them down, she had to try for them, they deserved it. 

“If my group decides to stay, I’ll accept,” Gloria smiles at Deanna, ignoring Gena’s grumbling of where else are they going to go.

“Bring Glenn in here,” Gena calls out as Gloria walks out of the room and towards the main door of the house.

Gloria rolls her eyes at Gena making Aaron, who was already waiting for her outside the room, laugh. Gena really didn’t care about being subtle that she cared more about Glenn than her. Not that Gloria cared at all since it was also obvious that Gloria cared more for Glenn than she did about Gena. 

“Glenn,” Gloria calls as she steps out of the house, “you’ll never believe who’s in there.”

He furrows his brows at her, “what?” 

She claps a hand on his shoulder to gently push him towards Aaron who was waiting for him at the door with a smile, “you’ll see.”

—

After Deanna had finished with all of the interviews from Rick’s group, they were taken to the building that housed the community’s armory. They’d agreed after meeting Deanna that they would give up their firearms temporarily; Deanna allowed them all to keep their bladed weapons, including Daryl’s crossbow. They were always allowed to reclaim them when they left the walls, but inside the walls their weapons would be kept, safe and secure in the armory. Then, Aaron had led them all to two large houses down the street. He’d surprised them all by telling them that these houses were now theirs, should they decide to stay. Rick ultimately decided to take the chance but kept a very wary eye out in case anything went wrong. One by one, they all got themselves cleaned up and situated in the living room where they had all decided to sleep tonight. 

“I seriously can’t believe Gena’s here.” Glenn chuckles as he leans on the back of the couch. 

“Neither can I…” Gloria sighs then she nudges Glenn, “so how hard did she hug you when she saw you?”

“She nearly burst into tears and bear hugged me,” he laughs softly, “what about you?”

Gloria eyes him playfully, “you’re kidding right?”

“I know you two barely ever hugged, but I just thought this would be a moment,” Glenn shrugs.

“C’mon, it’s me and Gena, we aren’t ever sharing any moments.” Gloria rolls her eyes at her brother’s optimism.

“One can hope,” Glenn chuckles.

“Glenn, Gloria,” Maggie calls as she walks down the hallway, her hair looking freshly washed, “washroom’s free now for whoever wants to go first.”

Glenn gestures for Gloria to go first but she just pushes him towards the hallway, “you’re the one Maggie wants to cuddle, and I ain’t letting her snuggle you when you stink.”

He rolls his eyes but then laughs in defeat, nodding as he goes down the hall. Maggie chuckles at the two and shakes her head.

“Hey, I love you too,” Maggie says to Gloria with a smile.

“I know you do, you just love him more,” Gloria jokes, she then looks out the front door and sees Daryl seated on the porch, gutting the possum right on the front steps. 

From his body language, Gloria could tell that he wasn’t comfortable being within these walls. He knew as well as her that the people around them were watching their every move, but more so focused on him. She knew that making a mess of the front porch was Daryl’s way of saying ‘I don’t give a shit what any of you think’. With a soft sigh, Gloria makes her way outside to the porch and leans on the railings, watching him work on his catch. 

“Wha’?” Daryl asks, glancing up at her when he feels her eyes on him.

“Nothing, just wondering what you can do with a possum,” Gloria says, wanting to joke around with him to help him feel more at ease, she then turns to find Carol standing on the side of the porch, “Carol, what can you do with a possum?”

A knowing smile spreads on Carol’s face as she glances from Gloria to Daryl, “well, there’s stew, possum roast, maybe even barbeque. It all depends on how Daryl prepares it.”

“Barbeque… hey, you think we can do possum kebabs?” Gloria asks, looking at Carol but she knew that Daryl was listening.

“Kebabs? But we’d need sticks,” Carol says, an amused smile on her face.

Gloria bites her lip to keep from laughing and glances at Daryl, “we could use Daryl’s bolts.”

Her words cause a snort of laughter from Daryl as he shakes his head, “ya’ll ‘re weird.”

“Hey, it would work,” Gloria laughs, a grin on her face.

“It would! I’ll need to think of a nice marinade.” Carol continues to play along.

Gloria absolutely loved the sound of Daryl’s laugh, even if it was just for a short moment. Daryl wasn’t unaware of her intentions, it warmed his heart knowing just what she meant to do. He appreciated her and loved her with everything he had. This is why he hadn’t voiced out his discomfort in staying in a place that judged every single molecule of his being. He had told Deanna that this is what Judith and Carl deserved, but that was only part of what he felt. Daryl wanted Gloria to be safe and happy, he wanted to provide her with a place to call home. They had that once back at the prison, and he needed to give her that safety again. He felt that she deserved a place like this. 

“Hey Gloria, I’m done,” Glenn calls from inside the house. 

Gloria glances behind and nods then looks at Carol, “you cleaned up already, right?” 

“I did,” Carol smiles, “go on, I’ll watch him.” 

“I don’ need to be watched…” Daryl grumbles, making Carol and Gloria chuckle.

Gloria crouches down and kisses his cheek, “sure, you don’t.” 

A small smile ghosts Daryl’s lips at her affection but it’s gone in a flash, “I ain’ no kid.”

“Oh really?” Gloria raises an eyebrow then continues when he hums a yes, “you’re getting cleaned up after I’m done, okay?”

“Nah,” Daryl says, “don’ wanna.”

Gloria laughs as she gets up and begins to walk to the door, “that’s what a kid would say.” she teases in a sing-song tone.

Daryl eyes her retreating backside then Carol as she tries to stifle her laughter, “it’s ‘cause o’ ya that she teases me like tha’.”

“Oh please, Daryl,” Carol rolls her eyes, “she’s your girlfriend, she’s gonna tease you no matter what.”

Daryl felt his heart jump when Carol used the word ‘girlfriend’ to refer to Gloria. Yes, she is his girlfriend, he’d just never heard it being said aloud before. He never even thought about it that way; she is so much more than just his girlfriend. He lowers his head to hide his now blushing face. 

“Daryl, are you blushing?” Carol coos on.

“Shaddup!” 

—

The flow of hot water from the shower head stops when Gloria turns off the tap. She squeezes the excess water from her hair and wraps a towel around her body as she steps out of the shower. Gloria begins to pat dry her body with the towel when her eye catches her reflection in the mirror. She does a double take when she registers the marks on her body. Cuts and scars tainted her skin, each one a grotesque flaw that had its own story. Gloria hated them. She hated how they looked, how they felt, how they made her feel. She knew that she should be thinking of them as a reminder that she’s a survivor and that she’s strong, but she couldn’t think of them that way. All she saw in each scar was how stupid she was and how she had failed. 

“Fuck….” Gloria curses under her breath, trying to control the tears in her eyes as she stares at her scars. 

Not wanting to see them anymore, she quickly gets dressed into a set of clean clothes, throwing her dirty clothes in the hamper. Gloria begins to towel dry her hair, giving herself time to breathe and calm down before stepping outside. The last thing she wanted was for the others to find out that she was on the verge of tears for what she thought was such a stupid reason. 

“Hey,” Gloria says as she smiles at a freshly shaven Rick in the hallway, she gestures to him, “you… have a face.”

Rick chuckles at her words and nods, defeated, as if he’d been getting comments about his new appearance from everybody. Gloria laughs and pats his shoulder as the two walk by each other. 

When she reaches the living room, she sees the others in her group setting up their spot for the night. Gloria spots Daryl sitting by a window and makes her way to him, knowing that she had left her things with his earlier. She proceeds to take out a clean bandage to wrap up her gash on her forearm that was still healing. As Daryl sees this, he takes her hand in his and helps her patch up her wound, not letting her refuse. Once he finishes with it, his arm snakes around her waist pulling her close to him and she leans into him, giggling when she feels him sniff her hair.

“Smell clean?” Gloria says with a smile, making him hum a yes, “you gonna clean up?”

Daryl purses his lips and shakes his head, looking down to avoid her eyes. He feels her sigh softly but doesn’t push him on the matter. Instead, she moves to rest her head on his chest, her arm draped around his torso. Daryl plants a kiss on the top of her head as she snuggles him, his fingers playing with her shirt when he notices something. 

“Ya always gonna be wearin’ my clothes now?” Daryl says soft into her ear with a smirk on his lips. 

Gloria blushes at the realization that she was in another one of Daryl’s shirts, “stop putting your shirts in my bag…”

“I didn’ put nothin’ in yer bag,” Daryl chuckles, “ya were wearin’ my shirt when we found each other back at Terminus.”

“I was…” Gloria admits.

“And ya ripped the sleeves right off.” Daryl teases, knowing she had a thing for his arms. 

“Stop,” Gloria blushes more and playfully hits his chest.

He chuckles at her reaction but their playfulness is gone once there is a knock on the front door. Everyone in the room is on high alert as Rick goes to open the door. Deanna stands in the doorway and smiles at him, not letting Rick off without complimenting his fresh appearance. Deanna had come to them to check up on how the group was adjusting, only to find that they were all sticking together. Apparently, she had given everyone a job except for Daryl, and Sasha; she hadn’t offered Rick and Michonne theirs yet but would in due time. The next day was when the group would get to explore and know the town, and the day after, for those with jobs, that’s when their work would begin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am finally caught up to the chapters I have up on my tumblr so I will be posting accordingly to my usual schedule. As of now, I will be posting a new chapter of Fated every Monday! ^^ 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read and commented on my story, it really does mean a lot! You guys are the best ❤❤❤


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

The next day, the group had been told to explore, get to know the place and meet people. Rick was surprisingly encouraging of it and so the group took off. Gloria decided to leave her daggers at home, she had planned to check out the community’s infirmary and if she was to work there, having daggers strapped to her sides may not be the best first impression. Gloria walks out to the porch where Daryl was seated on the floor, his back leaning on the rails. She looks at him and tilts her head, blinking.

“What are you doing just sitting there?” she asks, taking a few steps to him.

He shrugs, “‘m good here.” 

“Are you sure? You can take a walk with me,” Gloria says with a smile.

“The sun’s out, thought ya only liked full moon walks.” Daryl says, a hint of a smile on his lips. 

She chuckles and shakes her head, “I like walks with you, sun or moon.”

“Ya go off, I’ll be here...” Daryl says, not moving from his spot on the porch floor. 

“Okay, I’m just going to check out the infirmary, I’ll be back soon,” she tells him as she starts to go down the steps.

“Ya ain’ gon’ bring yer daggers?” Daryl calls out as he notices he doesn’t have her weapons on her.

“I don’t think I’ll need them, pretty sure I can take down anyone who comes at me here,” Gloria says, earning a snort of a laugh from Daryl.

“I think we should check out their pantry, see how well they do on runs,” Glenn says as he walks out of the house and down the steps with Maggie trailing behind him.

“Room for one more?” Gloria calls out as she follows suit behind her brother. 

Glenn chuckles at her choice of words then the three of them walk down the street together. They come across the house that is supposedly Gena’s house, she made sure to let Glenn know which one was her’s. A young man around Glenn’s age steps down the porch of that house and both Glenn and Gloria stop in their tracks when they see who the man is. Maggie looks at the two in confusion, trying to figure out why they both stopped dead in their tracks. 

“You’re kidding me... right?” Glenn groans.

“Okay... who else are we going to find here...” Gloria grimaces. 

“Glenn! Gloria!” the young man who came out of Gena’s house runs towards them and tackles Glenn in a hug as Gloria swiftly dodged out of the way. 

Glenn makes a face at his sister just before the man pulls away, grinning at Glenn, “I seriously can’t believe you’re here, man!” 

“Jacob... I can’t believe it either,” Glenn says, an uncomfortable smile on his face. 

“I never thought I’d ever see you again!” Jacob grins. 

“I never **wanted** to see you again...” Gloria mumbles under her breath, making Jacob look at her, but he still had a grin on his face. 

“Gloria... I missed you so much!” he says as he makes his way towards her.

“W-woah!” Gloria exclaims as Jacob picks her up in a hug. 

“You have no idea how happy I was when Gena told me you’re **both** here,” Jacob says, putting Gloria down and looking back at Glenn.

When Jacob turns to look at Glenn, Gloria signals to him that she is going to go and to keep him distracted. He catches her eye and nods, knowing just how uncomfortable Jacob made her feel. 

“Yeah...” Glenn says, then he gestures to Maggie, “this is Maggie, my wife.”

“Oh right! I heard from Gena that you got married in this? Woah, she’s a beauty, man.” Jacob says, shaking Maggie’s hand. 

As they make small talk, Gloria backs away and mouths ‘I love you, brother’ to Glenn then she quickly takes her leave. She turns on the next street over where the infirmary was located, Aaron had let her know where it was earlier. Gloria walks up the steps to the building and knocks on the door, waiting a short moment before the door opened. 

“Hi?” a woman with red hair in a ponytail, and glasses greets her, seeming somewhat nervous at Gloria’s sudden appearance. 

“Hi, um, I’m Gloria.” she smiles at the woman.

“I’m Denise,” she says, awkwardly waving her hand. 

“I’m part of the new group that came in yesterday, pretty sure everyone knows about us...” Gloria says, causing Denise to nod, “I just wanted to check out the infirmary, I’m apparently gonna be one of the medics working with the doctor? Pete, I think his name was?”

“Oh! You’re one of the new medics! Well, I’m one of the... other medics, please come in,” Denise says with a smile as she invites her into the infirmary, “did you want me to get Pete? I can if you want me to.”

Gloria chuckles and shakes her head, “it’s okay, I don’t actually start until tomorrow, at least that’s what Deanna told all of us. I just wanted to check it out here, if the doctor’s not in I wouldn’t want to bother him on his downtime given he always has to be on-call.”

Denise nods, pursing her lips, “you... actually worked in a hospital... didn’t you?”

Gloria nods but furrows her brows, noticing the woman’s drop in facial expression, “what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing... just... Pete’s a surgeon, you worked in a hospital, and the other medic probably has some experience in being a medic... meanwhile, there’s me, a psychiatrist.” Denise sighs, slumping down on the empty patient bed. 

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Gloria says, “a psychiatrist is still a doctor, no matter what.”

“I’m useless when it comes to saving lives and in emergencies,” Denise looks down.

“A psychiatrist heals wounds people can’t see.” Gloria tells her, making Denise look up at her.

“Did you get that out of a book or something?” she asks.

“I think I heard it somewhere,” Gloria says, making the other woman chuckle, “it’s okay for you not to have experience in these things. When this all started, I barely had experience.”

“Really?” Denise furrows her brows, “but I heard from Deanna that you helped stop someone’s bleeding.”

“That was after the world ended. Before that, I would just watch the doctors do all the work since I was only an intern. The most I did was give shots and stitches,” Gloria explains.

“At least you still have experience with stitches... You know I planned to become a surgeon?” Denise says, a sad smile on her face, “it’s what I wanted to be but then... my anxiety acted up and then the panic attacks... and that’s when I got really interested in psychiatry.”

“I know what you mean, we probably have the most stressful and pressuring job there is now,” Gloria sighs, “but hey, we’ll work through it all together.” 

“I’ll just stand in your way...” Denise looks down again.

“Denise,” Gloria calls out, making the other woman look up at her, “I’ll be right with you, I just need you to try, okay?”

Denise ponders her words for a moment before nodding with a smile on her face. Gloria understood what Denise was going through with the pressures and stressfulness of being in the medical field. She’d felt it while she was an intern and even more so after the world ended. Gloria felt that Denise was a good person who wanted to do her best. She knew that with the proper encouragement and guidance, Denise would become a fine medic. 

\---

Back at the house, Daryl was pacing around the living room, driving himself absolutely crazy. The others had been out for a few hours already to explore the community, leaving him at the house alone with his thoughts. He didn’t care that the people in Alexandria were watching him, eyeing him like a hawk and judging him. He knew they would no matter what, and that wasn’t what bothered him. What plagued his mind was him seeing another man hug his girl. 

Since Daryl remained on the porch when Glenn, Gloria, and Maggie left to explore the place, he was able to hear when an unfamiliar male voice called out to the siblings. He turned to catch the man picking up Gloria in a hug, regardless of her being visibly uncomfortable towards him, and seeing that made his blood boil. It took everything in him to not run over and punch the man in the face. Daryl trusted her, of course he trusted her, he just hated seeing someone who was not him embrace her the way he did. 

“Hey Daryl,” Glenn says, interrupting his pacing as he walks into the house with Maggie behind him, “everything okay?”

Daryl looks at him, mid-step and nods at him in acknowledgement. He felt stupid for feeling the way he did, but he really needed to know who the hell that guy was. 

“Yo Glenn...” he calls out just as he’s about to sit on the sofa. 

“Yeah?” he responds, looking at Daryl.

“Come here for a sec?” Daryl says, beckoning him over to the kitchen counter where he stood.

Glenn furrows his brow as he walks over to him, “what’s up?”

Daryl hesitates for a moment, biting his thumb nail nervously, “that guy... who is he...?”

“What guy...?” Glenn tilts his head in confusion.

“Don’ be playin’ dumb, tha’ prick tha’ hugged ya an’ Gloria,” Daryl says, frustration in his voice as his patience was running out.

“Oh, Jacob?” Glenn clarifies.

“Whatever his name is, who is he?” Daryl persists.

Glenn finally realizes what’s going on with Daryl and has to keep himself from chuckling, “he’s a guy on Aiden’s run team, used to be a cop before all this, but he’s not someone you need to worry about.”

“Ya know him from before?” Daryl asks.

“Yeah, we went to the same highschool, and his sister is Gena's best friend,” Glenn tells him truthfully.

“So, he’s yer friend too...” Daryl says, not liking this.

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend...” Glenn says, earning an eyebrow raise from Daryl, “I knew him before highschool because of Gena and he was in a few of my classes but we barely even talked. He was one of those jocks who always thought they’re better than everyone else.”

“Ya were friends with that kind o’ person?” Daryl asks, furrowing his brow in confusion, he thought that Glenn was saying he wasn't his friend just so he felt better about not liking the guy. 

“I told you, we aren’t exactly friends,” Glenn says then sighs when Daryl stares at him, “okay, long story short... he bullied me in highschool.” 

Daryl narrows his eyes at him, he knew Glenn wasn't the type to fight back, especially not in his teen years. He wanted to tell him that he should have told his older sister, but knowing how Glenn is, he wouldn't want to potentially ruin his sister's friendship with Jacob's sister. Now, Gloria on the other hand, Daryl was sure that she'd do something about it. 

“Gloria wouldn’ let that slide...” he says. 

“She wouldn’t... and she didn’t. When she found out, the next day she found him and punched him in the face,” Glenn chuckles at the memory then sighs, “but then that’s when he apparently fell in love with her...”

“What?” Daryl frowns at that, “what kind o’ masochist prick is he..?”

Glenn shrugs, “I don’t know, man. I just remember that he couldn’t stop bothering her after that... asshole even used me to get her to go on a few dates with him.”

“What?!” Daryl exclaims, he couldn’t stop the jealousy from exploding inside him as he registered Glenn’s words.

“He threatened to keep bullying me if she didn’t...” Glenn sighs as he looks down, “I practically begged her not to go and that I could take whatever he threw at me but you know her...” 

Daryl sighs heavily and nods, knowing how protective Gloria is over Glenn, she would have done anything to prevent Glenn from getting bullied, even going on dates with a prick. The thought of it made Daryl uneasy and curiosity plagued his mind again as he wondered what they did on those dates, or rather what that guy tried to do on those dates. Glenn seems to catch onto his uneasiness as he snaps Daryl out of his thoughts when he puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to worry about him, though. Gloria still kinda hates him,” Glenn says with a chuckle.

“Ya tellin’ me not to worry about her ex who might still be in love with her?” Daryl asks rhetorically.

"Gloria says he’s just a guy she went on a few dates with to save my ass, nothing more.” Glenn reassures him “yeah, **he** might still be in love with her or whatever, but she doesn’t care. She cares about **you** , Daryl. And if it makes you feel any better, I approve of you, not Jacob.”

Daryl scoffs playfully, and he nods, “thanks...”

“No problem,” Glenn smiles at him, patting his arm, “also, let me know if you’re ever planning to kick his ass, I’d love to join in.”

Daryl snorts a laugh at his words and nods again, wordlessly promising Glenn to let him know. He felt himself more at ease after talking to Glenn, although he didn’t like that they would be living in a community with someone from Gloria’s past but he had to deal with it. Later in the evening, Gloria had come back to the house and she told Daryl about Denise. He was happy for her that she made a new friend at the community, all the while he kept quiet as he listened to her talk about her day. Daryl felt that he didn’t need to bother confronting Gloria about Jacob, he was a person from her past.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

The next morning, those who were assigned jobs got up early to get ready and head out. Glenn, Tara, and Noah went to meet Aiden, Deanna’s son, Jacob, and their friend Nicholas as part of the supply run team. Maggie went to see Deanna as she was appointed her assistant, Abraham left bright and early to go find Tobin, the man who was in charge of the town’s construction team. Gabriel went to tend to the town’s church and Eugene had become the town’s engineer. Gloria and Rosita step out of the house together and Gloria spots Daryl sitting on the railing of the porch, fixing his crossbow. 

“You go ahead, I’ll meet you there,” Gloria tells her with a smile.

“Alright,” Rosita says, smiling back then she goes on her way to the infirmary; she was the other appointed medic from their group.

“You have anything planned for today?” Gloria asks Daryl as she walks up to him.

“Nah,” he says, not looking up at her as he tugs at his crossbow, “I’ll jus’ be here, guardin’ the house ‘r somethin’.”

“You’re not a guard dog, Daryl,” Gloria frowns at his words then sighs when he stays silent, “after my shift at the infirmary, you want to take me outside the walls to go hunting?”

Daryl finally looks at her, his fingers pausing whatever he was doing with the crossbow and a smile tugs at his lips, knowing what she was trying to do, “really?”

“Yeah, it’s been awhile since you took me on a hunting date, what do you say?” Gloria asks, a shy grin on her lips. 

“Ya’ll be at the infirmary, righ’?” Daryl asks and Gloria nods, “I’ll pick ya up after yer shift.”

“Pick me up? When did you become a romantic, Mr. Dixon?” Gloria teases as she leans closer to him, gently pressing her lips to his in a tender kiss.

He smiles into the kiss, his hand reaches up and caresses her face when she pulls away, “ya really want me to look forward to this date, don’t ya?”

Gloria blushes slightly at his words and is about to say something else but the door to the house opening catches their attention as Carol steps out. Gloria turns around to greet her but seeing her attire, she gets tongue tied, not knowing what to say. Carol was wearing brown pants held up with a thin belt, her blouse was neatly tucked into her pants and over her blouse she had a lavender blue button up sweater.

“Time to punch the clocks and make the casseroles,” Carol says in a sing-song voice as she adjusts her blouse.

“What?” Daryl says, furrowing his brows looking in Carol’s direction, his face falls to one of shock.

“Make dinner for the older people, moms who need a break, people who can’t cook,” Carol tells them as she looks out into the community, “get to meet a lot of the neighbors that way.”

Daryl scoffs at this and goes back to fidgeting with his crossbow, “a’right.”

“Have you taken a shower yet?” Carol narrows her eyes at him, looking at Gloria when he hums a yes which was obviously a lie, “Gloria, I’m giving you the job to make him take a shower.”

“You make it sound easy,” Gloria chuckles.

“Well, we need to keep up appearances,” Carol says as she begins to make her way down the steps of the porch then looks at Daryl, “even you.”

“Hey, I ain’t startin’ now.” Daryl tells her then nods pointedly to Gloria, “plus, ain’ like she minds.”

Gloria rolls her eyes at Daryl’s words, “I wouldn’t mind it if you were clean either.”

“Hear that?” Carol says, raising her eyebrow at Daryl, “get cleaned up or I’m gonna hose you in your sleep.”

“Ya look ridiculous,” Daryl calls out as Carol walks down the sidewalk. 

“I should get going too, I’m already late,” Gloria says, making her way down the steps of the porch, “I’ll see you later.”

Daryl smiles softly at her and nods. He watches her as she makes her way down the road to the infirmary. His smile fades as he sighs, leaning back on the beam connecting the porch to the roof of the house. Daryl wasn’t sure if Gloria was aware, but he felt judgemental eyes on him when she kissed him. He was certain he knew what they were all thinking, ‘why would she choose him?’. Daryl didn’t care what they thought of him, but just because he didn’t care, didn’t mean that he liked being watched and judged all the time. 

\---

Gloria had met up with Rosita and Denise at the infirmary and they first did some inventory checks to make sure they had enough medical supplies. If they were short on anything, they would make a list and give it to Aiden for things to look out for when they went on runs. While going through the inventory, Gloria’s eyes catch a book sitting on the shelf near the bottles of medicine. She picks it up with a thoughtful look on her face; it was a book all about medicinal herbs. 

“Do you guys collect herbs?” Gloria asks Denise, catching Rosita’s attention.

“We’ve been planning to,” Denise says, “Deanna even has a whole garden patch for us to plant the herbs so we don’t have to go out there every time we run out.”

“You guys are resourceful,” Rosita says with an impressed smile, “can we see it?”

“Sure!” Denise says enthusiastically.

She leads the two women outside to the garden just outside the infirmary. Rosita and Gloria walk with Denise as she gestures to it. Gloria and Rosita look at it then frown at each other.

“It’s...empty?” Rosita points out.

“Yeah...” Denise looks down, “like I said... we’ve been **planning** to collect herbs but... I’m no good out there, Pete doesn’t **want** to go out there, and Aiden and his group wouldn’t know what to get even with that book.”

“Well, you have us now,” Rosita says, glancing at Gloria then back at Denise with a smile, “we’ll go out and get the herbs.”

“But... I was hoping you could teach me how to stitch and all that...” Denise says hesitantly.

“Rosita and I can take turns,” Gloria suggests, earning a nod from Rosita, “one of us will go out there while the other stays here and teach you what you want to know.”

Denise smiles brightly at the two and is about to express her gratitude when a commotion breaks out near the main gates. All three of them look towards the area and see Glenn and Aiden seemingly about to fight. Gloria frowns at this and curses under her breath as she sees Jacob also part of the crowd surrounding them. Maggie and Deanna also had seen this and started to make their way over. Gloria runs over to the crowd as Aiden swings a punch at Glenn but he nimbly dodges out of the way and Glenn punches Aiden in the face, knocking him to the ground. Daryl, who had also come out because of the ruckus, tackles Nicholas to the ground as he was about to attack Glenn. Gloria finally reaches the crowd and lets out a small growl when she sees Jacob about to approach Glenn. She roughly pulls Jacob back by his arm, he stumbles out of the way as Gloria glares at him.

“Don’t.” she says in a dangerous voice as she points at him. 

“Daryl,” Rick says as he pulls Daryl up from on top of Nicholas. 

Rick had come back to the community with Carl just in time to see the altercation. Daryl shrugs Rick’s hands off him as he backs away, huffing in anger. Daryl paces back and forth, still eyeing Nicholas like a beast stalking its prey. Rick looks over to Gloria and signals her to take care of Daryl as he tries to diffuse the situation with Deanna. Gloria nods and walks over to Daryl, holding his arm to try and calm him down.

“I want everyone to hear me, okay?” Deanna starts, speaking to everyone and anyone who can hear her, “Rick and his people are part of this community now, in all ways, as equals.”

She pauses for a moment, almost expecting a rebuttal from someone but gets none, “understood?” Deanna says this looking directly at her son. 

“Understood.” Aiden says, shrugging as if he was the bigger man.

“All of you, turn in your weapons,” Deanna orders then she gestures to Aiden, Nicholas, and Jacob, “then you three, come talk to me.”

As the crowd disperses, Daryl looks past Gloria as he and Rick make eye contact. The two of them seemingly having a wordless conversation in their minds with each other. 

“I told you I had a job for you.” Deanna starts, looking at Rick, “I’d like you to be our constable. That’s what you were, that’s what you are.”

She then looks at Michonne, “and you too. Will you accept?”

A short silence emits between them all as Deanna glances between Rick and Michonne, patiently waiting for their answer. Michonne smiles approvingly at Rick as he chuckles softly, then finally he nods.

“Okay.” Rick says.

“Yeah, I’m in.” Michonne says with a smile.

Daryl scoffs at them as he shrugs off Gloria’s hand on his arm. She watches him worriedly as he angrily huffs away, picking up his crossbow and walks back towards the house. Gloria glances back at Rick, Glenn, and Michonne before chasing after him. 

“Daryl!” she calls out as she runs towards him.

He doesn’t stop for her as he continues on his way, he tosses his crossbow onto the porch while he walks up the steps. Gloria sighs as she watches Daryl go back to his usual spot on the porch. She carefully makes her way up the stairs and approaches him.

“Daryl..?” she calls, her voice soft.

“‘M fine!” he huffs, not looking at her.

“You and I both know that’s bullshit,” she says, reaching out to make him face her, “talk to me, what’s wrong?”

Daryl scoffs at her and shrugs her hand off, “ya say tha’ as if ya don’ know! Like ya don’ see how all ‘em pricks look at me like I don’ belong ‘ere!” 

“You **do** belong here, you belong with **us**!” Gloria’s heart breaks at his words. 

“Nah, I shouldn’ be here... not protected by these damn walls, even Deanna can see tha’... why ya think she hasn’t given me a damn job yet?!” Daryl paces around as he angrily vents his feelings, “she coulda put me on that run team wit’ Glenn ‘r construction wit’ Abraham, but nah! She jus’ sees me as a useless fuckin’ redneck...” 

“Daryl...” Gloria sighs, she felt guilty that she didn’t know the extent of how much the town’s judgement actually bothered him, “if you want to leave, we’ll leave.” 

“Rick ‘an Michonne jus’ signed up for their jobs, they ain’ goin’ nowhere.” Daryl scoffs bitterly.

“Then **we’ll** go, just the two of us. The others will understand.” Gloria says, sincerity in her voice.

Daryl looks at her, pondering for a moment before shaking his head, “nah... ya’ll be good right here wit’ yer pretty boy ex lookin' over ya...” 

“My what?” Gloria frowns at him.

“Jake ‘r whatever the fuck his name is! He yer ex, ain’t he?” Daryl snaps. 

Gloria sighs, figuring that Glenn told him about her past with Jacob, “we only went on a few dates, that’s it. It was nothing!”

“Well he sure still seems serious ‘bout ya...” Daryl huffs, “he’s a better fit for ya anyway, a clean ass cop’s the perfect match for a doctor...”

“Just because you think he’s a better match for me, you think I’ll just **be** with him?” she frowns, hurt and anger building in her heart.

Daryl looks at her, “better ya be with someone like him than a nothin’ like me...”

He knew that he was being irrational with what he was saying, but his jealousy was overriding his wave of emotions. He hated himself for it but he wasn’t able to control it. Daryl was angry and upset at how things had become. He wanted a home for his people, a place they could all feel safe and not worry about food the next day or feel the need to sleep with one eye open. They had finally found it in Alexandria but Daryl felt that the Alexandrians accepted everyone but him. He’d always been an outcast even before the end of the world, but after finding and becoming a family with his own people, he didn’t want to lose that. Daryl was terrified that his people would start to see him the way the Alexandrians saw him. He just wanted his people to be happy, and if he had to withdraw himself and push them all away so they could have that happiness and safety, he would do it no matter how much it hurt him.

The look in Daryl’s eyes gave everything away. How much he was hurting to the point that he wanted to run away from everyone he held dear. Gloria saw that and in an instant her anger dissipated. She couldn’t let him think of himself as nothing, she wouldn’t. 

“You’re not nothing,” Gloria says, she carefully takes a step towards him and Daryl watches her as she reaches out and gently caresses his face with her hand, “you can’t be nothing when you’re my everything.”

She pulls him into a deep tender kiss and Daryl melts into her touch. She wraps her arms around his neck as she pours everything into her kiss. She knew that words wouldn’t suffice so she had to show him how much he means to her. Slowly, Daryl began to ease into the kiss, his harsh emotions from before were dissolving with each touch. Unfortunately, his keen senses picked up yet again the feeling of judgemental eyes on the pair causing him to pull away from her. 

“People ‘re watchin’...” he mutters, slightly ashamed that he was giving into their stares.

“Then let them watch,” Gloria whispers breathily onto his lips, surprising Daryl as she pecks his lips again, “I gotta let them know that no matter what they think, I’m yours and only yours.” 

She captures his lips again in a steamy kiss and runs her hands down his chest. Something inside Daryl changes at her words and he quickly pulls away from the kiss. 

“Nah,” he says, earning a worried look from Gloria, “I ain’ lettin’ ‘em see nothin’.”

Daryl grabs Gloria’s wrist and pulls her into the house and to one of the bedrooms on the main floor. He presses his lips to hers once more as he backs her up towards the untouched bed. His lips trail her jaw as he showers her in kisses, earning a few giggles and moans from her. His hands begin to unbutton her blouse that acted as an outer layer and Gloria does the same with his shirt. Once undone, she pushes his shirt and vest off his shoulders altogether just before Daryl strips her of her tank top. She lies back on the bed with Daryl on top of her, her fingers tangling in his hair as he kisses down her neck to her chest. 

It had been so long since the two of them were able to be intimate like this with each other. They had their moments back before the prison was attacked but even that felt so long ago, they needed this. Daryl didn’t know it but he needed Gloria to show him just how strongly she felt for him. He felt that his importance and presence within the group was deteriorating every second he was inside the walls and his confidence to be himself was going with it. To know that Gloria was willing to throw away the potential life there, leave with him, and even let him claim her in public proved to him that Daryl is indeed her everything. 

“I fuckin’ love ya...” Daryl says breathlessly as he pulls her naked body to his.

Gloria giggles and snuggles into him, “I love you too.” 

“‘M sorry... ‘bout earlier...” he says nuzzling into her hair.

“For which part? Pushing me away again? Calling Jake my ex?” Gloria playfully eyes him, making him hide in the crook of her neck, “or not wanting to be affectionate in public?”

She says the last part with a hidden smile and Daryl hears it in her voice as he looks at her with a smirk, “I ain’ lettin’ anyone see ya like this but me.”

Gloria chuckles and moves her body so that her head is resting on his chest, her arm draped around his torso, she lets out a content sigh, “so... when we get our own rooms, I’m guessing this one’s ours?”

Daryl chuckles at her words then presses a kiss to her forehead, “if ya want.”

\---

Later that evening, after they had all dined on the dinner Carol had prepared for the entire group, Gloria stands on the porch leaning on the rail with Glenn. She had called him out after their dinner as her curiosity and worry about the dry run was all she could think about. 

“What happened out there?” Gloria asks.

“Aiden, Jacob, and Nicholas led the three of us out, told us how their supply runs worked and that they lost three of their people on the last run,” Glenn explains.

“Three?” Gloria frowns at this.

“That’s what they said... Aiden said that it’s because they didn’t listen to his command but honestly, I’m calling bullshit on that.” Glenn sighs.

Gloria chuckles, “don’t let Gena hear you swearing like that, or she’ll give me shit for teaching you bad things.”

“Hey, I’m the older one,” Glenn nudges her with a chuckle.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t teach you bad things,” Gloria grins cheekily at him, making him roll his eyes, “anyway, continue. Them losing people couldn’t be the reason you came back so pissed.”

Glenn sighs and nods, “you’re right, it wasn’t. They found one of the walkers that killed their friend and tied it up.”

“They didn’t kill it?” Gloria asks, a disapproving look on her face.

“That’s what I was thinking... they said that it was some kind of pregame ritual to get their heads on straight, I think they were gonna use it as some kind of shooting practice... but it got loose so they started whistling for it to come out,” Glenn explains.

“They could have gotten you all swarmed if there were more around, what the hell?” Gloria says, anger rising inside her as she takes in how stupid these people actually were.

“Yeah... when it came out, Tara grabbed it and it was about to bite her so I went in and killed it.” Glenn says and scoffs, “then Aiden yells at me as if **I** did something wrong, as if I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Gloria puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently, “don’t waste your feelings on these idiots, they’ll have to learn the hard way that we’re the smart ones.”

“Yeah but I don’t want the hard way to be losing anyone else, whether it’s us or them.” Glenn says, a frustrated look on his face. 

“I know, that’s why you’ll have to lead them to the right path, keep them in check,” Gloria says, patting his arm before leaning on the rail again.

“Don’t think Jacob wants me to keep him in check though,” Glenn chuckles and shakes his head.

“Please, I’m sure you can beat him up now,” Gloria says.

“You know he used to be a cop?” Glenn asks rhetorically.

“Yeah, I know, and apparently you told Daryl too,” she eyes him playfully, “you told him he was my ex?”

“I never said he was your ex, I said you went on a few dates with him and that’s it, I guess he just jumped to that conclusion,” Glenn defends innocently, “how’s Daryl doing though? He didn’t look too happy earlier.”

“He’s fine, just feels a little out of place but he’ll be okay,” Gloria smiles softly. 

Glenn nods as he leans back on the railing, looking into the house, he smiles, “well... seems like he’s trying to blend in a bit.” 

Gloria furrows her brows at his words, slightly confused. She looks over at Glenn and he nods pointedly into the house. Gloria turns around and sees Daryl through the window. He had actually cleaned himself up. Glenn and Gloria glance at each other and chuckle before going into the house. 

“Look who’s finally clean,” Glenn grins as he leans on the kitchen island counter. 

“Stop...” Daryl groans, rolling his eyes as he sits on one of the kitchen stools. 

Gloria chuckles and sits on the stool beside him, “I’m proud of you.”

Daryl shakes his head to hide under his long hair, his face blushing, “thanks...”

“So how long has it been? Two days? Three days?” Glenn asks, wanting to tease Daryl a little more. 

“Jus’ ‘cause you’re her brother don’ mean I won’t hit ya...” Daryl grumbles. 

“Relax Daryl, he’s just teasing,” Carol chimes in with a smile, “besides, I’m pretty sure he just wants to know who won the bet.” 

“Bet?” Daryl says with a frown, looking from Gloria, Carol, and Glenn, “what bet?”

“How many days it would take until you took a shower,” Carol informs him.

Daryl knew that for the sake of their own entertainment and boredom, their group would make bets and play silly games but he never thought that he would be the centre of their bet. Not that he minded since it was harmless, curiosity was getting the better of him though.

“So who won?” Daryl asks, surprising the three of them.

“Me,” Gloria says with a shy smile.

“Yeah, but for the record, I was going to say three days first,” Glenn says.

“Yeah.... but you didn’t.” Gloria smiles cheekily at him.

“What’d ya win?” Daryl asks, eyeing her curiously. 

“First choice on the rooms,” Gloria tells him, making Daryl chuckle with a nod. 

Footsteps coming from the stairs took their attention away from each other as Rick made his way down to the main floor. He was in a jacket that replicated that of a police uniform. 

“Ya a cop again?” Daryl asks, breaking the silence.

“Just trying it on for size,” Rick says with a sigh then looks at everyone, “I think we can start sleeping in our own rooms, start settling in.” 

“I take it we’re staying then,” Carol points out.

“Yeah... yeah we’re staying.” Rick says, finalizing the decision for the entire group. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

The next morning, Glenn and Gloria were standing in Gena’s living room, waiting for her to come back out of her room. When Gloria was about to leave her own house to go to the infirmary, Gena had come by and pulled both of them to her house, saying she had something very important to give them. As the minutes went by, Gloria got more anxious. She's learned that Jacob and his sister also lived with Gena, and there was always the chance that they would come back to their house. 

“I’m gonna be late... so do you wanna-” Gloria is cut off by Glenn.

“No, I do not want to tell her you left because you had to go,” Glenn says, reading her mind. 

She sighs softly and looks down, fidgeting with her fingers, “what do you think she wants?”

“Well, she said it was important,” Glenn says. 

Gena’s footsteps interrupt their conversation as they watch her walk out to the living room holding a bunch of clothes. She places the clothes on the couch before she turns to her younger siblings. 

“Have you two thought about what you’re wearing tonight?” Gena asks.

“Tonight?” Gloria furrows her brow.

“What’s happening tonight?” Glenn asks, mirroring Gloria’s expression.

“Oh... so no one told you yet...” Gena ponders before speaking again, “Deanna decided to hold a welcome party for you and your group, so do you have anything you can wear to look presentable?”

Glenn and Gloria glance at each other before sighing and shaking their heads. Knowing Gena, presentable didn’t only mean clean, barely wrinkled shirts. It meant formal, or at least semi-formal attire so that she wouldn’t be embarrassed being associated with them. Gena had always been a very cautious person and cared a lot about her image in the public eye, even after the end of the modern world it seemed. 

“You two are so lucky you have me,” Gena says, turning back around and going through the pile of clothes. 

“Sorry, if we knew that there would be a party after the outbreak happened I would have packed a dress or two...” Gloria mutters, earning a nudge from Glenn. 

“You and your talking back...” Gena sighs, then she turns around, holding two outfits in each hand. 

In Gena’s left hand was a checkered dress shirt and black dress pants with a bowtie draped over her arm. In her right was a sleeveless black dress and black heels to match. 

“Do I have to wear the tie?” Glenn asks with a grimace.

“It would complete the outfit and make it adorable, but if you don’t want to, then no, you don’t have to wear the tie,” Gena smiles at him.

“Do you have anything that’s not sleeveless?” Gloria says, looking down as if afraid to ask. 

“Nothing that would fit your body type, I’m not letting you go to that party looking like a fashion trainwreck.” Gena says.

“Can you at least give me a cardigan to throw over top?” Gloria tries to negotiate.

Gena groans, “why do you have to be so difficult?” 

“She’s not being difficult, Gena. She’s just asking you a question,” Glenn says in Gloria’s defence. 

“It’s fine...” Gloria says, still not looking up, “I’ll just ask Carol for a cardigan or something... I gotta go, I’m late for my shift.” 

Before Gena could say anything else, Gloria exits the house and makes her way towards the infirmary. Glenn offers to take the clothes back to his house. 

“You know, you spoil that girl.” Gena says, crossing her arms. 

“I don’t,” Glenn says, “you’re just too hard on her.”

“You don’t actually think that, do you?” Gena frowns at her brother’s words, “figures... she’s always trying to make me look bad...”

Glenn scoffs, “do you seriously not know how your words affect her?”

“They don’t affect her at all if you’re always spoiling her the way you do!” Gena argues. 

“I’m not spoiling her! I just treat her how she’s supposed to be treated!” Glenn says, raising his voice. 

“I’m your older sister but you don’t treat me like it! All you do now is think of how she feels when I’m just trying to care about you!” Gena says, getting visibly upset as tears well up in her eyes,

“Then show that you care about her too! Not just about me,” Glenn says, “your Gloria’s older sister too, don’t forget that.” 

Without another word, Glenn takes the clothes in his arms and leaves the house, letting Gena consider his words. 

\---

Gloria had gone out the walls to collect medicinal herbs for the infirmary. She’d taken the book on herbs with her as well as an empty tupperware container to store the herbs. From her less than pleasant conversation with Gena that morning, Gloria didn’t want to be stuck inside the walls, so collecting herbs was her best excuse to leave and not deal with anyone. 

“There we go,” Gloria says to herself as she crouches down.

She closes the book and places it to her side as she grabs a dagger from her belt and cuts one of the herbs. Carefully, Gloria places the piece into the container and seals it before getting up with both the container and book in her hands. As she gets up from crouching, she hears footsteps from behind her. Gloria quickly turns around, holding her dagger defensively to face whoever or whatever was approaching her. 

“What are you doing out here?” Gloria says with a frown as she sees Jacob walking towards her.

“I saw you coming out here alone, wanted to make sure you were okay,” he tells her.

“I’m okay, you can leave me alone now.” Gloria says just before turning around to walk away from him but as she walks, she can hear him following her so she turns back to face him, glaring, “stop following me, I can handle my own.”

“I’m sure you can, but I want to be out here with you so you don’t have to worry about keeping yourself safe,” Jacob says, “I can keep you safe while you’re out here.”

Gloria scoffs at this, “please, I’m safer **away** from you.” 

“Gloria... it’s safer in numbers, you know that.” Jacob tries to convince her.

“Not with you people it’s not...” Gloria mutters, “what are you gonna do when you see a walker come at me? String it up and use it as target practice like you did with the one that almost killed Tara?”

“That.. that’s not what happened,” he stutters.

“Glenn told me exactly what happened and how stupid you and your friends are.” Gloria spits out.

“That walker killed our friend!” he argues.

“Then you kill it when you see it! What did you think was going to happen when you chained it up and shot at it, that it was going to apologize for eating your friend? Walkers don’t have remorse, they don’t care about what they do, they don’t even feel pain!” Gloria heaves angrily as she rants.

“I know that!” Jacob exclaims, “ **we** know that, we’re **not** stupid.” 

“Then stop acting like you are.” Gloria throws back, “you see a walker, you kill it before it can hurt you or **anyone** else you care for. That’s how it should be.”

“I’m sorry,” Jacob says, completely surprising Gloria as she never thought she’d hear those words come out of his mouth, “we lost someone and let our emotions get to our heads, thought that was the best way to deal with it but it wasn’t. We shouldn’t have done that with the roamer.”

Gloria shifts awkwardly on her feet, “glad you realize that...”

“Can I stay with you out here?” he asks, hope in his voice.

“No.” she tells him flatly.

“Why not?!” Jacob frowns, frustrated.

“Because you can’t protect me!” she raises her voice.

“Yes, I can!” he takes a step towards her, “I’ll have you know I used to be a cop-”

“That doesn’t matter, Jacob.” Gloria eyes him, not backing down when he steps towards her again, enraged by her words, “it didn’t matter to Deanna otherwise she would have made you the constable and not Rick.”

“She made a mistake with that,” he seethes.

“No, she didn’t. Deanna made Rick and Michonne the constables to take care of the place because she sees us as who we are. Survivors. People who know the dangers out here, and she knows that Rick knows what he’s doing and **will** keep the place safe,” Gloria tells him.

“My people can keep the place safe from walkers, too. **Without** your group helping us,” Jacob says.

“I’m not just talking about walkers. There are all sorts of people out there who will do unspeakable things to get what they want. Dangerous people who were only born after the world went to shit, some you probably never even heard of as a cop.” Gloria says, disdain in her voice.

“Dangerous people...?” Jacob says, eyeing Gloria, “like that dirty redneck of yours? He seems pretty dangerous to me.”

Gloria narrows her eyes at him in anger, she clenches the dagger in her hand tightly in a fist. Her grip on the weapon was so tight that her knuckles turned white. She had to take deep breaths to control her anger so as to not kill him or at least hurt him rather badly right then and there. 

“How about rapists... and murderers?” Gloria seethes, glaring at him, “Or **cannibals** that lure you into a trap just so they can butcher you alive and eat you?”

Jacob’s eyes go wide at the mention of the word, “what?”

“You heard me. There’s also corrupted cops that manipulate people to work for them and take whatever the fuck they want just because they think they have power,” Gloria sighs heavily at the memories as they flash in her mind, “my people... we’ve been through all that shit, we lost family because of people you aren’t even able to wrap your mind around, so **don’t** tell me you can protect me. Against walkers? Yeah maybe, but not people. So, just leave me the hell alone.” 

With that, Gloria turns on her heels and walks away from Jacob, heading further into the woods. She knew that just because she said all that doesn’t mean that Jacob wouldn’t be following her. He was a persistent person when it came to her; after all the times she’d told him to screw off, Jacob never listened. This time was no different as Gloria had walked much deeper into the woods and continued to hear his footsteps trailing behind her. She decided to ignore him as she always did, it was either ignore him or knock him out, but then she’d have to drag him back to Alexandria so he didn’t get eaten. However, when she heard the loud bang of a handgun roar through the forest, Gloria turned around to face him immediately. 

“Told you I’d protect you,” Jacob says, holding the handgun proudly with a smile, he nods pointedly over in the direction he had shot, assuming to point out a walker he’d just killed but Gloria didn’t look in that direction.

“Are you kidding me?!” Gloria shouts angrily, taking the smug smile off Jacob’s face, “you came out here with a handgun **without** a silencer?!”

“Hey, relax! If more come, I’ll get them,” Jacob tries to reassure her only to earn a groan from Gloria.

“We have to go back, **now**!” Gloria says as she fixes the strap of her bag on her shoulder, not finding time to put the tupperware and book in to her bag, she has them tucked in her left arm and starts to head back to Alexandria.

“No, we don’t. I told you, **I’ll protect you**. If more come, I **will** get them, I’m a great shot!” Jacob says, his ego blinding him from everything as he follows her.

Gloria stops in her tracks and turns to face him, “how many bullets do you have?”

“Enough,” he tells her, proudly.

“Enough for a large herd?” she asks, rhetorically, “because you just called every walker within a mile radius straight to us and every walker you shoot without a damn silencer is only going to bring more. Do you people **seriously** not think?!” 

Gloria seethes in anger and annoyance as she turns around to walk back, missing the look of humiliation on Jacobs back as she mutters curses under her breath. He follows her silently until she stops in her tracks but he doesn’t need to ask her why she stopped as they both hear snarls from in front of them. 

“Do you have a knife?” Gloria says lowly as she watches a few walkers stumble out from behind the trees.

“I do.” Jacob tells her.

“You better use that and not your gun,” Gloria tells him before going towards one of the walkers. 

She takes out a dagger from her belt with her right hand. Gloria swiftly jabs at one of the walkers in the head. As it falls, another lunges towards her and she quickly grabs hold of its neck with her right hand. The blade of her dagger was cutting through the walker’s neck but nowhere near the brain. Dark rotten blood spews out from the cuts, making her grip on the walker more difficult. Gloria backs away with the walker still trying to snap its jaws at her. She gets backed up into a tree while she struggles with the walker. 

“Gloria!” Jacob calls from somewhere in the woods.

Gloria ignores him as she’s fighting the walker. Seeing no choice, she drops the book and container onto the ground and grabs her other dagger from its sheath but before she can kill the one in front of her, another walker comes from behind the tree and grabs her forearm. Gloria cries out in pain as the walker holds on tightly, squeezing her injury that had not yet fully healed. She tries to yank her arm away as the walker tries to bite her, the movement only caused more pain from her wound. Soon though, the walker’s grip falls limp, freeing Gloria’s arm and she grunts as she roughly stabs the walker pinning her to the tree. 

“Ah...” she whimpers as she leans on the tree, cradling her left forearm as it pulsated with a dull soreness. 

Gloria looks down at the walker she had just killed then turns to find the walker that had grabbed her arm. She hadn’t killed it so it must be around, she also wondered why it just let go of her. She didn’t need to look far at all as the walker laid dead on the ground right by the tree with an all too familiar bolt sticking out of its head. Not a second later, Daryl steps out of the bushes and hurries towards her.

“Ya a’right?” he says, a worried expression on his face.

Gloria smiles softly at him and nods, “yeah, thanks to you.”

Daryl tries to hide the smile that tugged on his lips at her words as he turns serious, “what’re ya doin’ out here?” 

“I was collecting herbs for the infirmary, we want to start the herb garden so we don’t have to be out here as often,” Gloria explains as she goes to pick up the book and container she’d dropped, then she looks back up at Daryl, “you hunting?”

“Was, then ran into Aaron,” he tells her, nodding pointedly making Gloria look in that direction and she sees Aaron helping up Jacob, “we heard a shot an’ decided to help... didn’ think it’d be ya an’ that prick...”

“He followed me out here,” Gloria says quickly before Daryl could ask what they were doing together, “wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“I’ll make him take no for an answer...” Daryl mutters under his breath making Gloria chuckle. 

“Gloria...” Jacob says as he and Aaron approach the two, “I’m so sorry... I couldn’t help you.”

“Are you okay?” Aaron asks her, a worried look on his face.

Gloria nods, “yeah, I’m fine.”

“Ya the one tha’ fired a shot?” Daryl glares at Jacob.

“Yeah, that was me.” Jacob glares back, not faltering.

“The hell were ya thinkin’, huh?! Damn near got her killed!” Daryl yells, stepping towards him only to be held back by Gloria.

“Daryl, don’t. I already gave him shit for it,” Gloria says, trying to calm him down.

“I was trying to protect her,” Jacob says in his defense, making Gloria eye him for even deciding to say anything, “I came out here to protect her.”

“Protect her?” Daryl hisses as he steps towards Jacob but not out of Gloria’s grasp, “well ya sure as fuck did a bang up job callin’ all ‘em walkers right to her. Ya could barely save yer own ass, how the fuck can ya protect her?!”

Gloria tugs at his arm as she knew that if she didn’t try to stop it now, there would be a fist fight between the two, “we should head back.”

“Gloria’s right,” Aaron chimes in as he also senses the building tension, “Deanna’s party is starting soon, Gena and Mindy are going to want you both there.”

“Right, the party...” Gloria tenses up at the mention of her sister’s name and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Daryl, then she tugs at Daryl’s arm again, “come on.”

Daryl glances at Gloria but doesn’t question her on her sudden change of expression, he gives Jacob one last glare before he turns to walk with Gloria, not forgetting to wrap his arm protectively around her shoulders. Aaron ushers Jacob to walk with him and the four of them make their way back to the main gates of Alexandria. 

“Yer arm okay?” Daryl asks her as they head towards their assigned houses. 

Gloria nods, “it’s a little sore, but it’s not bleeding, so I should be okay.” 

“Tha’s good,” Daryl smiles softly at her as they walk up the steps to the porch. 

Some of their people had already headed out for the party but it seemed that Glenn and Maggie were waiting for Gloria to come back. 

“I was really hoping you would stay out there all day,” Glenn teases, making Gloria roll her eyes while she places the book and container on the island counter, he then points towards her and Daryl’s shared bedroom, “I put the dress in your room.”

Gloria sighs then looks at Maggie, “do you have a cardigan I can borrow?”

“I already put one in your room,” Maggie says with a smile. 

“You’re the best, thanks.” Gloria says with a grateful smile before heading into the room to get changed. 

Daryl stays out near the kitchen as he leans on the island counter, a sly smile on his face when he looks at Glenn’s outfit, “ya look like a school boy.” 

“Thanks,” Glenn rolls his eyes playfully, making him and Maggie chuckle.

“I think it looks cute, a bit old-schooled, but better than any of our tattered clothes,” Maggie says.

“Yeah, Gena wouldn’t let us get away with wearing anything else,” Glenn sighs.

Maggie looks over at Daryl with a soft smile, “I take it you’re not going?”

“Nah... ain’ my thing.” he mutters.

“I don’t think it’s any of our thing at this point,” Glenn chuckles, earning a playful glare from Daryl.

“Wasn’ my kind o’ thing even before this.” Daryl shrugs. 

“Glenn, catch!” Gloria calls out as she walks down the hallway from her room, she tosses him the red bowtie, “you put that in my room.”

Maggie’s face lights up when she sees it and Glenn groans as he tries to convince her not to make him wear it. As the two negotiate, Daryl’s eyes fall on Gloria and he feels his heart skip a beat. She was in a tight black dress that outlined her curves perfectly, the neckline dipping to show just enough cleavage. Over top, she had Maggie’s long sleeved white cardigan that was buttoned at the top so it blocked anyone’s view of her chest. Her long black hair was let free from her usual half ponytail, falling and curling naturally at the ends. It was such a simple look but it completely took Daryl’s breath away, he’d never seen her like this before. 

“Ready to go?” Maggie asks with a smile after she’s done teasing Glenn. 

“Yeah,” Gloria says as she drops the black heels to the ground, “you guys head out first, I’ll catch up.”

Glenn smiles and nods then proceeds to leave the house with Maggie. Gloria steps into the heels and takes a few steps as she adjusts to her new temporary height. Daryl smiles lovingly at her, adoring how she looks all the while trying to ignore how the heels accentuated her legs. 

“Ya really gotta go lookin’ like that?” Daryl finally says, making her look up at him. 

Gloria sighs and walks up to him, “Gena’s orders...” 

“Ya don’ gotta listen...” he mutters.

“I do otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it,” Gloria shrugs, “you sure you don’t wanna come?”

“Nah...” Daryl shakes his head.

“Okay,” Gloria says, caressing his face with her thumb, a thoughtful look on her face before she speaks again, “your smokes are in the front pocket of my bag, I don’t want you too stressed out tonight because of this party.”

“Thanks,” he says, not knowing what else to say to her thoughtfulness. 

She smiles at him then grabs both his hands and guides them to her lips as she kisses the back of them. Daryl smiles softly at her gesture, knowing that she was telling him to not hurt himself like that again. 

“I love ya,” Daryl says then he pulls her in to kiss her lips gently, he then pulls back, “listen, if anyone touches ya-”

“I’ll punch them in the face.” Gloria interrupts him, making him chuckle and nod, “I’ll be okay, I’ll just miss you.”

A light blush glows on Daryl’s cheeks at her words, he nods pointedly to the door and gestures towards it, “ya should go, Glenn ‘n’ Maggie ‘re waitin’ on ya.”

“I know, just... wanted to ask you if you can help me with something?” Gloria asks sheepishly.

“Hm?” Daryl smiles softly at her, “what is it, sunshine?”

“Can you bring these to the infirmary? Denise should still be there, she hates social gatherings,” she asks, gesturing to the book and container, “only if you want to.”

Daryl glances to the items then nods, “a’right.”

“Thanks, Daryl. You’re the best.” Gloria grins and presses a deep kiss to his lips, making him caress her face with his hand. 

“Ya should go’fore I decide to keep you here,” Daryl rasps onto her lips.

“Okay, I’ll try not to miss you too much,” Gloria giggles then quickly she leans in to kiss his cheek then heads out to meet with her brother and sister-in-law.

Daryl wasn’t sure what he found more unbelievable, the fact that someone like her loved him, or that they were together for so long and Gloria was still able to make Daryl feel butterflies and blush the way he did. Daryl always tried to show that it annoyed him when she teased him, but Gloria was able to see right through his act. Although he would never admit it, deep down he loved every bit of it. 


	12. Chapter 12

Glenn, Maggie, and Gloria arrive at the front door of Deanna’s house where they are greeted by Reg, Deanna’s husband and also the one who built the walls around Alexandria. He leads them into the main room where the rest of the party guests linger, letting them help themselves to the food and drinks. Glenn then spots Noah awkwardly cowering in the corner of the room, a forced smile on his face. Glenn nods pointedly towards him and the three go to his rescue. 

“Hey,” Glenn says with a soft smile, “you okay?”

“Yeah...” Noah nods, “yeah, um just... isn’t really my thing.”

“Not mine either, trust me,” Gloria smiles at him.

Noah chuckles and nods, “I think I’m gonna head out.”

“No, no. You’re not bailing,” Glenn stops him, “we’re in this together man.”

“You’re here with us now.” Maggie says, nodding reassuringly, “you’re here with family.”

Gloria looks around and spots the table that had beverages situated on top of it, she then glances back at Noah, “you wait here.”

Without waiting for Noah to try and stop her, Gloria goes over to the table and gets two party cups. She opens a bottle of gingerale and pours it into one cup, then pours herself some whiskey in the other. She knew she’d need some alcohol to get through this party. Putting on the lids of both bottles, Gloria heads back over to her friends with the two cups. She hands the cup with gingerale to Noah. 

“Oh, no, I can’t drink,” Noah says, waving his hand at the cup.

“It’s gingerale,” Gloria tells him in a whisper, “finish the cup and pretend to be drunk so we have a reason to leave earlier.” 

Glenn chuckles and shakes his head while Noah grins at her words, “that... that sounds great.”

“She’s a better planner than you,” Maggie teases Glenn.

“Please, where do you think she gets it from?” Glenn playfully rolls his eyes. 

Gloria chuckles and takes a sip from her cup, hissing slightly at the burn down her throat. The four of them have a light conversation amongst themselves before Gena and another woman near her age approaches. 

“Glad you could make it,” Gena says, a smile on her face as she greets them.

“You forced us to come...” Gloria mutters under her breath, looking down.

Maggie furrows her brows at Gloria’s expression as she’s never seen her act this way before. Glenn sighs softly, knowing how uncomfortable Gloria felt whenever Gena was around. Gena frowns at her words but it is soon replaced by a smile as she then gestures to the woman beside her.

“Glenn, you remember Jacob’s sister, Mindy right? Maggie, you met Mindy the other day in Deanna’s office.” Gena says. 

“I did,” Maggie smiles politely and nods at her in greeting, “nice to see you again.”

Mindy smiles at her and nods, then she looks over at Gloria and Noah, “Pleased to meet you two.”

Gloria blinks at her while Noah awkwardly smiles at her. Glenn furrows his brows as Gena has to do her best to stifle her laughter. 

“Mindy, this is Gloria.” Gena tells her.

The woman lets out an exaggerated gasp as she looks at Gloria, “ **you’re** Gloria?! I didn’t even recognise you! I guess it took the end of the world for you to **finally** learn how to properly groom yourself.” 

Gloria forces a smile at her, “yeah... I guess it did.”

To anyone listening in on their conversation, it would seem that Mindy genuinely didn’t recognise Gloria. However, her and Glenn knew that she knew it was Gloria but Mindy just wanted to take cheap jabs at her like she and Gena always did when they were younger. 

Gena looks around the room then looks at Gloria, “that’s odd, I thought Daryl would be here with you."

Gloria purses her lips, knowing that nothing good could come out of this, “no, this... isn’t really his thing.”

Noah eyes her playfully, “I said the same thing but you’re making me stay.”

“You came on your own,” Maggie points out. 

“Daryl...” Mindy ponders for a moment. 

“ _Here it comes..._ ” Gloria mutters under her breath in Korean, earning a worried look from Glenn. 

“Oh, that filthy man you were making out with the other day?” Mindy says, as if just remembering, she then lets out a mocking chuckle, “I guess losing your taste in men makes you shameless too, showing so much public affection like that.”

Gloria’s grip on her cup tightens as she gets angry at her words. Glenn sighs as Maggie frowns, not knowing what to do since they were still at the party and they both doubted Gloria wanted to cause a scene. Noah takes a sip from his cup, eyeing Mindy.

“Hey, that’s not very-” Noah starts but he’s cut off by Gloria.

“Speaking about men, where’s Rob?” Gloria asks, looking right at Mindy.

Her expression falls at the mention of her ex-husband. Gloria knew that the man had cheated on her with multiple women which ended their marriage years before the end of the world, she’d heard it from Gena. Mindy had to know that Gloria wouldn’t back down without putting up a fight. 

“Gloria.” Gena says in a warning tone but Gloria doesn’t bat an eye, not when they were about to start bad mouthing Daryl. 

“It’s okay, Gena, little girls don’t know any better,” Mindy says, putting a hand on her best friend’s shoulder, then she turns around and calls out to Jacob, “can you bring me my glass of wine?” 

As Gloria takes another sip from her cup, Glenn gives her a look that was a mixture of disapproval but amusement at the same time. She shrugs at him subtly causing Glenn to chuckle and shake his head. Jacob had brought a glass of red wine to Mindy and as she turns around to face the group, she yelps and jolts forward slightly as if someone had bumped into her. Gloria gasps as the dark red liquid spills all over her.

“Oh my gosh, I’m **so** sorry!” Mindy says. 

“Gloria, are you okay?” Maggie asks, a worried look on her face.

“I’ll go get some napkins,” Noah says just before he and Jacob rush off towards the kitchen.

Gloria sighs as she looks down at the now maroon stained cardigan but nods at Maggie, “yeah I’m fine... sorry about your cardigan though.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Maggie smiles at her reassuringly. 

“Gloria, take that off, you can’t keep wearing it when it’s like that,” Gena orders.

“I-I’m fine, I want to keep it on,” Gloria insists, cowering back away from Gena’s outreached hand. 

“No, you’re taking that off right now,” Gena says as she steps towards Gloria but the younger backs away, making her groan, “you want to keep playing the victim and make Mindy feel worse for spilling wine on you?”

“Gena, stop!” Glenn gently pulls her back, “she doesn’t want to take off the cardigan, don’t force her.”

“Gloria, don’t make me count,” Gena warns her, completely disregarding Glenn. 

“Fine.” Gloria says, glaring at Gena, she accused her of playing victim to make Mindy feel bad, that’s what Gena was going to get. 

“You don’t have to,” Maggie says with a frown as Gloria gives her the cup to hold for her. 

Gloria doesn’t say anything as she unbuttons the top button of the cardigan and pulls the piece of clothing off her. She could hear the quiet gasps from all over the room as her scars are all revealed for the people to see. She hated the feeling of all eyes on her, Gloria curses under her breath as she feels tears well up in her eyes. Shock is evident in Gena’s eyes as she looks at her younger sister, and Gloria is certain Gena feels disgust for her as well. 

Noah and Jacob had returned from the kitchen with paper towels, a look of shock on both of their faces for differing reasons. Jacob had just learned about her scars while Noah was surprised Gloria had decided to reveal her injuries at the party. 

“I... I didn’t know.” Gena says in a soft whisper.

“Yeah you did... you both did...” Gloria says, failing to control her tears as one rolls down her cheek.

Glenn reaches out and gently grabs Gloria’s hand, “come on, we’re leaving.”

Without saying anything or even looking at Gena, he pulls Gloria towards the door with Maggie and Noah trailing behind them. 

“Glenn!” Gena calls out.

He stops and ushers Maggie and Noah to guide Gloria outside, he turns around and glares angrily at Gena, “I **told** you not to force her.” 

“I didn’t know!” Gena says in her defence.

“It doesn’t matter.” Glenn huffs then leaves the party and catches up with the other three. 

They walk together towards their house. Noah was cracking lame jokes to try and help Gloria feel better while Maggie and Glenn walked with them in silence. Once they made it back to the house, Gloria kicked off her shoes and thanked Noah for trying to help her. Glenn, Maggie, and Noah could only watch helplessly as Gloria retreats back to her room. She didn’t bother turning on the light as the moon luminated most of the room from the window. From the doorway, she could see that the room was empty. Part of her was glad that Daryl wasn’t home so that he wouldn’t see her like this, but the other part wished he was as she wanted to find comfort in his arms. 

Gloria allows the tears to fall from her eyes as she struggles to pull the zipper on the back of her dress down. She doesn’t care if the dress ripped as she roughly pulls at the zipper, finally the slider moves down enough that she can tug the dress down and off her body. Gloria grunts as she kicks the dress away from her. Now that she was only in her bra and underwear, she could see all her scars in the full body mirror in the corner of the room. She walks up to the mirror as her eyes scrutinize each and every mark on her body. She could still feel the judgement and pity from those at the party and she hated every second of it. 

“You did this to yourself...” Gloria says as she glares at herself in the mirror, “you’re so damn stupid... why the hell would you listen to Gena... you’re such an idiot...” 

She curses under her breath as she begins to sob, unable to control her emotions any longer. She felt so foolish, she knew what Gena and Mindy were trying to do and she still fell for it. Gloria didn’t know how Gena knew about her scars, but she was certain that she did before she revealed them. In the moment, Gloria knew that it would make Gena feel bad, but she wasn’t sure whether the pain and humiliation afterwards was worth it at all. 

“Fucking dumbass...” Gloria whimpers between breathy sobs. 

She was so immersed in her emotions, Gloria didn’t even hear the door open and close. She’d only known that someone had come into the room when she felt a warm hand on her bare lower back. She lets out a gasp and turns to face whoever it was, her hands balled into fists as a fighting reflex, only relaxing when she realizes it’s Daryl. 

“Glenn told me what happened,” he says as he wipes her tears away with his thumb. 

“I was an idiot...” she says, her voice breathy and shaky. 

“Nah, ya weren’... they’re jus’ assholes,” Daryl says, he leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead, “c’mon.”

He ushers her towards the bed and sits her down. He begins to kiss her scars, starting with the arm closest to him. His lips trail down her skin, not letting a single inch of it go untouched. Daryl moves onto the next scar on her forearm. A soft smile tugs at Gloria’s lips at his gesture, she knew that he was wordlessly telling her that he loved her, every single part of her, scars and all. Just as she had done for him every night at the prison. Daryl moves to kneel in front of her when he’s done showing his love to the scars on her arms and chest, he caresses her cheek with his thumb.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he tells her as he looks into her eyes, “perfect in every possible way, an’ nothin’ can tell me otherwise.”

Gloria tearfully smiles at him, his words warming her heart, “I love you.”

“I love ya, too.” he says just before pressing his lips to hers in a sweet kiss. 

She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him to lay down on the bed with her as she kisses him back. Their kiss becomes passionate and heated as his hands explore her body. Gloria’s hands move to unbutton his shirt, and he only parts from the kiss to remove his clothing. Daryl captures her lips with his again but this time in a sweet gentle kiss, earning a light giggle from Gloria. He smiles at the sound of her laughter and proceeds to trail kisses down to her neck and chest.

Daryl had always been a man of few words, always showing what he truly felt through his actions. He knew that no matter how many times he told Gloria that she’s perfect and beautiful, she wouldn’t listen as she was just as stubborn as him in that matter. Like him, he knew that the only way to have her accept her scars and not be insecure about them was for him to show her that he loves her no matter what. Just like she had done for him. 

“You’re perfect,” he says, planting a light kiss on the tip of her nose before laying down beside her. 

Gloria lets out a giggle as she wraps her arm around Daryl’s torso, her head laying on his chest, “I love you.” 

He wraps his arms around her, holding her close as he presses a kiss to her forehead, “I love ya, too.” 

The two lay together, snuggled in each other’s arms in a comforting silence before Gloria speaks again, “Daryl?” 

“Hm?” he hums in response.

“Where did you go tonight?” she asks, genuinely curious.

“Aaron’s, he invited me for dinner,” he tells her, “Eric makes some pretty good spaghetti.”

Gloria groans playfully, “you’re telling me I missed out on spaghetti?”

“Mhm,” Daryl chuckles, he ponders for a moment before speaking again, “he gave me a job.”

Gloria furrows her brows as she looks up at him curiously, the moonlight luminating his icy blue eyes, “a job? What kind of job?”

“Gonna be the other recruiter for this place, Aaron doesn’ want Eric goin’ out there anymore...” Daryl tells her, biting his lip as he wasn’t sure how she would like him leaving Alexandria for days at a time.

“So... you’re gonna go out there to find people and bring them back here?” she asks after pondering for a short moment.

“Yeah...” he answers, nervousness and worry filling up in his heart as he doesn’t know whether she was okay with it or not.

“On foot?” she asks.

“Nah, Aaron has a bike in his garage, I gotta fix it up though,” Daryl informs, earning a light nod from her, but she doesn’t say anything else. 

His worry and nervousness grow with every second of her silence. A million thoughts had crossed his mind when he was walking back to the house from Aaron’s house as he contemplated how to tell her about his new job. Being how he is, most of those thoughts were negative and disastrous scenarios of her getting upset and leaving him forever. Her body language however, did not tell him that she was upset or angry at him as she stayed cuddled in his embrace with no sign of wanting to move away.

“When are you guys leaving?” she asks, breaking the silence. 

“In a few days after I fix up the bike,” Daryl says, finally he works up the courage to ask, “ya okay with it? Me goin’ out there to find people?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Gloria furrows her brows in confusion, “you’re good out there, you know how to take care of yourself and I know how being stuck behind these walls makes you feel. Plus, it’s not like you’ll be going out there alone, Aaron’s proved to be a good guy, I trust him.”

Her words warm his heart and were able to chase his feelings away, but he still needed to confirm, “ya really okay wit’ me leavin’ ya for a few days at a time?”

“You accepted already, right?” Gloria asks, earning a soft nod from him, “you accepted because you want to be out there, you need to be out there to feel like yourself, I get that so I’m not gonna hold you back from it. I just want you to remember where your home is and you promise to come back, even if it’s just to tell me that you’re gonna leave.”

“I’d never leave ya,” Daryl says, “home is where ya are.”

Gloria smiles at his words and snuggles into him, kissing his chest gently. That was her way of letting him know that she wanted to sleep. Daryl couldn’t put into words how lucky he felt to have Gloria, she understood him like no other and never tried to change who he was. Even after all this time of being with her, he still didn’t know why she chose him but he was never going to take that for granted. 

\---

The next morning, Gloria had gone off into the woods again to collect more herbs. Although it was supposed to be Rosita’s turn that day, she let Gloria go in her stead as she had witnessed what happened at the party between her and her sister. She knew that not caring about what the Alexandrians thought about her scars would be a lot easier said than done, so she just didn’t want to deal with it. As she walks around the forest, actively looking for any herbs, she hears what sounds like silenced gunshots in the near distance. Furrowing her brows, Gloria decides to investigate and soon finds an open area littered with dead walkers. She sees someone in the distance wearing a green army jacket armed with a rifle and she sighs when she recognizes the person as Sasha. Gloria ends up deciding to go up to her to make sure she’s alright when Sasha suddenly turns around and aims the rifle at her.

“Woah! Sasha, relax, it’s just me,” Gloria says, her hands held up as a natural reaction.

However, she doesn’t lower the rifle as she glares at Gloria, “why are you following me?”

“I wasn’t.” Gloria says, slowly putting her hands down, “I came out to collect herbs and heard shots, just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“Well I’m fine, so leave me alone.” Sasha says, annoyed as she turns around again to find more walkers in the woods. 

Gloria sighs as she knows Sasha is anything but fine. How could she be? She’d lost so much in such a short time. Gloria would be broken if she lost Glenn or Daryl, hell, even if she lost Gena.

“What are you still doing here? I said leave!” Sasha shouts. 

“Sasha, you need to talk to someone, you can’t keep doing this.” Gloria says. 

Sasha turns back around, this time the rifle is lowered, “I don’t **need** to talk to anyone! Why do you care anyway?!”

“Because I’m your friend!” Gloria shouts back.

“You are not my friend.” Sasha seethes, taking Gloria aback, “you’re just someone I know from the prison, nothing else. You didn’t even want me there in the first place, so I don’t even know why you’re saying you’re my friend when you’re not.”

“I... if you want me to apologize for wanting to kick you out of the prison-” Gloria is cut off by Sasha.

“I want you to apologize for not being able to save Tyreese.” Sasha spits out bitterly. 

Gloria’s eyes widen at Sasha’s words, staring at her in shock, “I did... everything I could.” 

“But it wasn’t enough...” Sasha whispers, choking back tears as she looks down. 

It was that moment that Gloria knew Sasha was only trying to push her away. She was hurting and wanted to be alone, she wanted to mourn in her own way. Sasha was doing everything she could to push Gloria away, even go as far as tell her she was why Tyreese was dead. Gloria understood this, but her words still stung. 

“I’m sorry...” Gloria says, looking down, “I’m sorry for not trying hard enough... for not being able to save your brother...” 

Without waiting for Sasha to respond, Gloria walks away into the forest. If she didn’t want to be near her, if she was a reminder that Tyreese wasn’t alive anymore, then she would leave her alone. Gloria walks around the woods, her thoughts distracting her from looking for any more herbs. She thinks back to the prison and how she would always have friendly competition with Sasha, making bets on who would kill the most walkers. Her, Sasha, and Maggie had grown so close during those times and now it all seemed so far away. 

It was only when she heard Sasha cry out in pain that Gloria snapped out of her thoughts. She quickly rushes towards the area she’d last seen Sasha and finds her on the ground as walkers surround her. Sasha was swinging her rifle at the walkers that came too close for a clean shot. Seeing this, Gloria dashes towards Sasha, unsheathing both of her daggers and stabs at the walkers closest to Sasha. 

“Come on!” Gloria says once it’s clear for her to reach out for her, hurriedly pulling her up from the ground. 

“Ah!” Sasha groans once she’s on her feet, making Gloria look at her in worry, “I think I hurt my ankle...”

“Like old times then, cover my ass!” Gloria shouts at her before lunging at the walkers with her daggers. 

A small chuckle escapes Sasha’s lips as she shakes her head, then she positions the rifle, aiming it towards the walkers. Gloria jabs walker after walker swiftly as Sasha shoots from behind her, taking down any that could get too close. Soon enough, the small herd is cleared and Gloria goes back to Sasha to help her walk to a large arrangement of rocks. Sasha sits down on the large rock as Gloria kneels down in front of her to examine her ankle. 

“Looks like you got a sprain,” Gloria tells her, “I suggest you keep off your foot for a few days even if it’s just a small sprain, but if you still want to come out here I can give you a compression wrap back at the infirmary and some pain killers.”

“Why are you still helping me...” Sasha asks, remorse in her voice.

“You’re still my friend... even if you don’t want me to be anymore.” Gloria says, looking down. 

“Hey...” Sasha starts, “look, I’m sorry about what I said before... I didn’t mean it.” 

Gloria sighs and gets up, she sits on the rock with Sasha, “see, I don’t know if you mean that or you’re just saying it because you feel bad.”

“It’s both, I do feel bad but I do actually mean it. I was just... I don’t even know,” Sasha sighs, frustrated with herself.

“Pushing me away?” Gloria says.

“Yeah... pushing everyone away actually... I don’t think I spoke to anyone from our group but Rick since we got here,” Sasha tells her, she then gently grabs Gloria’s hand, “I’m serious though, I didn’t mean what I said about you not trying hard enough for Ty...” 

“I know,” Gloria says with a small smile, “doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry, it just slipped out...” Sasha grimaces at her lame excuse.

“Because you know me, that’s probably the only thing you could have said to push me away,” Gloria chuckles softly, “does this mean we’re still friends?”

“Please, if you weren’t my friend, do you think I would let you kill more walkers than me and win?” Sasha chuckles.

Gloria scoffs playfully and rolls her eyes, “let me? What are you talking about, I saved your ass.”

“Yeah, because I let you save my ass.” Sasha argues with a grin. 

The two continue to bicker for a while before deciding to head back to Alexandria. Sasha had her arm around Gloria’s shoulders while Gloria held her from her waist, she wanted to make sure Sasha didn’t put as much weight on her injured ankle. Gloria calls out to whoever is manning the gate to open and they two make their way towards the infirmary. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

Gloria helps Sasha up the steps to the infirmary before opening the door, “Guys, I’m back.”

“That fast?” Rosita asks as she looks in her direction, she gets up from sitting on one of the patient beds when she sees her holding Sasha, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a sprained ankle.” Sasha says, slightly embarrassed that she was in the infirmary for such a light injury.

Gloria signals to Denise who was sitting on another one of the patient beds, practicing stitches on pieces of thick cloth, “can you help clear one of the beds, please?”

“I don’t need a bed,” Sasha protests.

“We discussed this already, I won earlier and this is what I want, now sit,” Gloria tells her. 

Sasha scoffs and rolls her eyes playfully but still listens to her, “fine, but only because I honor my word.”

“What happened?” Rosita asks, an amused smile on her face, “I thought you were out collecting herbs.”

“I was, but then I found this one out there struggling with walkers so I saved her ass,” Gloria answers with a grin as she gets a compress bandage and heads back over to Sasha. 

“You save me once and you’re going to remind me every chance you get, aren’t you?” Sasha eyes her as Gloria kneels in front of her, helping take off her boot.

“Yep!” Gloria says cheekily, causing the others to chuckle, she proceeds to wrap up Sasha’s injured ankle.

“What were you doing out there?” Rosita asks, curiously.

“Hunting walkers,” Sasha says firmly, looking at Rosita.

Denise tilts her head in confusion, “but... why?”

Rosita furrows her brows and looks at Sasha, not knowing what to say. She was clear of the reason but she wasn’t sure Sasha would want the Alexandrians to know.

“Because they shouldn’t be around,” Gloria says, not looking up as she finishes with Sasha’s ankle. 

When she does look up, Sasha smiles softly at her, silently telling her thank you. Gloria smiles back and pats her knee before getting back up. She then goes over to Denise.

“How’re the stitches coming along?” Gloria asks Denise.

“I’m getting the hang of it, I think,” Denise smiles, showing Gloria her work.

She smiles approvingly and nods, “looking good, now, just imagine the cloth is skin and covered in blood.” 

Rosita and Sasha let out a chuckle as Denise groans, “you’re so evil...” 

\---

Daryl was seated on Aaron’s driveway with the bike in front of him. Parts and tools were all laid out on the ground as he worked on the bike, the garage was also kept open in case there was anything else he needed. Daryl figured that he would fix up the bike at Aaron’s house since the tools were already there, it would be a hassle to haul the bike and all the parts back to the houses his group had been assigned to. He felt at peace while working on the bike and he was more than grateful to Aaron who had given him the opportunity. 

“Nice bike,” Jacob remarks as he walks up the driveway, his arms crossed.

Daryl lets out a breath as he glances up at him before returning to work on the bike. Well, there goes his peace and quiet. A moment of tense silence passes as Jacob watches him work, Daryl felt uneasy knowing he was being watched. It wasn’t that he felt insecure about his work, he knew what he was doing, just Jacob’s presence bothered him. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” Jacob breaks the silence. 

“Ain’ got nothin’ to talk to ya ‘bout,” Daryl says, continuing to focus on the bike.

“Oh really? Not even Gloria?” Jacob frowns at him.

The mention of her name makes him stop what he’s doing and finally, he looks up at Jacob, “wha’ ‘bout her?”

“You questioned my ability to protect her,” Jacob starts.

“Tha’s ‘cause ya can’t.” Daryl says.

“And neither can you.” Jacob glares at him.

“The fuck is that s’pposed to mean?!” Daryl scowls at him.

“I saw her scars at the party last night and I know she didn’t have them when I knew her,” Jacob tells him matter-of-factly, “which only means she got them after she met you. You couldn’t protect her from getting hurt!”

Daryl clenches his fist around the wrench he was holding, he couldn’t say anything to that. He wasn’t there to protect her from getting shot, and he couldn’t stop Nina from hurting her. He was always there with her after the fact, but was never able to prevent it and he hated himself for it. 

Jacob takes a step towards Daryl, “she’s with you now because she doesn’t see what you really are, but I do. It’ll only be a matter of time before she sees what I see and when that happens, she’ll leave you in the dirt where you belong.”

Daryl could feel his heart rate rising from anger at his words. He knew that Jacob was trying to provoke him, rile him up so that Daryl would look bad, but he knew better than to take the bait. He also knew that no matter how Jacob or anyone from Alexandria saw him, it wouldn’t affect how Gloria saw him. 

“What? Nothing to say?” Jacob scoffs, “you can’t even defend yourself and you expect me to believe you can protect Gloria?”

“Ya better shut yer goddamn mouth!” Daryl shouts angrily as he stands up, visibly furious. 

“Or what? You’re gonna make me?” Jacob persists, he then lets out a fake gasp, “is that how Gloria got her scars? **You** hurt her?!”

That was enough to make Daryl crack. He didn’t care about how anyone saw him, but for anyone to accuse him of hurting Gloria in any way shattered any sense of reason he had left in him. Daryl lets out a growl as he steps out from behind the bike and lunges towards Jacob, his fist colliding with the other man’s face. Jacob tumbles backwards as Daryl rushes toward him. As Daryl throws another punch, Jacob dodges out of the way and hits Daryl in the gut, winding him before hitting him on the cheek. Daryl grunts at being hit before regaining his footing, he quickly strikes a blow to Jacob’s face then tackles him to the ground. 

Their fight had gained onlookers from the community, none of them knowing what to do as the two continued to beat each other up. Glenn, Rick, and Michonne rush towards the fight; Glenn was on the porch of the house when the fight broke out while Rick and Michonne were patrolling around the community.

“Go get Gloria,” Rick tells Glenn when he sees him, then he rushes over to pull Daryl off of Jacob, “Daryl, that’s enough. That’s enough!”

Glenn runs off towards the infirmary as Rick and Michonne try to break up the fight. Glenn quickly opens the door to the building and frantically looks around. Gloria looks at him and frowns worriedly as she sees his panic.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, going over to him.

“Daryl and Jacob are fighting.” Glenn tells her, panting slightly.

Gloria curses under her breath and rushes out of the infirmary, “what the hell happened?!”

“I don’t know!” Glenn tells her as they make it to the area in front of Aaron’s house. 

Rick and Michonne had successfully separated the two. Gena and Mindy were standing in front of Jacob as Daryl stood behind Rick. His chest was heaving in anger as he paced around behind his friend, Daryl’s eyes were still pinned on Jacob like a bull seeing red. Rick looks towards Gloria as he sees her coming closer, he nods to her, silently telling her to calm Daryl down. Gloria nods back at him and finally makes it to Daryl’s side, she gently grabs his forearm to keep him from going anywhere. 

“Daryl, it’s okay, calm down,” she says in a soft voice. 

He doesn’t look at her though as his eyes are still glued to Jacob who’s held back by Mindy, the two glaring at each other. Gloria sighs as she sees this, she tries again to get Daryl’s attention and focus on her. She carefully grabs his upper arms, turning him to make him face her.

“Look at me,” she calls gently, “sweetheart, come on, look at me.”

Her voice seems to break his rage as he finally looks at her, his eyes turning soft when he realizes it’s her. Gloria smiles at him and caresses his face with her thumb, her touch light as he has a bruise forming on his cheek. Maggie and Deanna make it to the crowd.

“Hey, are you alright?” Maggie asks as she walks behind Gloria. 

Daryl glances at her then nods, “yeah...” 

“What happened?” Rick asks, his voice low. 

“Asshole pissed me off... so I punched him...” Daryl answers. 

Rick sighs at this, “alright, well we’ll figure this out.”

“Rick,” Deanna calls out as she walks over to him, meeting him halfway, “according to Jacob, Daryl attacked him.” 

“Well, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for that.” Rick says, eyeing Jacob. 

“Reasonable explanation?! He nearly killed my brother!” Mindy exclaims.

Gloria looks at Jacob, examining his features then steps out, “you’re saying your brother is so weak that he’d die from a blackeye and swollen nose?” 

“Gloria.” Gena says in a scolding tone. 

“I’m not taking this from you,” Mindy glares at her then looks at Deanna, “we need to kick him out, he’s a threat to us all, we don’t know who he’s going to attack next!”

Deanna furrows her brows at Mindy’s words, “kick him out?”

“It’s the safest thing we can do,” Gena supports, crossing her arms, “we can’t have someone like him inside our walls, he’s a danger and he’ll never be one of us.”

Gloria takes in Deanna’s expression as she contemplates their words. It looked as if she was actually considering their suggestion of kicking Daryl out of Alexandria. Gloria sighs deeply, feeling guilty that she had dragged Daryl into her mess with her sister. She was sure Gena and Mindy were doing this just to get back at her for making them feel bad. 

“If Daryl goes, I go.” Gloria says, doing her best to look Gena in the eyes.

Rick, Michonne, Glenn, and Maggie look at her in surprise at her words. Gena and Mindy’s expressions are taken over by shock and Jacob frowns in jealousy and disapproval. Daryl looks at Gloria, he felt warmth fill his heart at her words but he also felt bad at the same time. He also noticed how Gloria wasn’t as confident as she used to be, she seemed to be trying to hold herself together as she spoke. Gloria was tense, her eyes wavering as if uncertain, just like when he noticed her change when Aaron mentioned Gena when they were outside the walls that one time.

“Gloria-” Gena starts, her tone a scolding one once again.

“You said he’ll never be one of you, and neither will I.” Gloria cuts Gena off, she looks around the crowd at the other Alexandrians then hesitantly back at Gena, “I saw how you all looked at me at the party. After you all saw how scarred my body is, you’ll always look at me the same way, like I’m an outsider.” 

Her words send a wave of guilt for those in the crowd, all staying silent and looking down. A look of remorse flashes on Gena’s face but is soon replaced by that of a stern one. 

“Nobody is going to be kicked out.” Deanna announces, she looks back at Gloria and smiles warmly, “don’t worry, neither of you are going anywhere.”

“You’re just going to let this go?” Mindy frowns at their leader.

“Gloria, take Daryl either to the infirmary or back home and get him fixed up, whichever you feel comfortable with,” Deanna tells Gloria then turns her attention to Mindy, “you do the same for Jacob, then I want to speak to both Daryl and Jacob separately. We’ll find out what went on and I’ll discuss a suitable penalty with Gena and Maggie. Understood?”

They all nod in agreement to Deanna’s words and the crowd begins to disperse. 

“C’mon, let’s go home, there’s a med kit in the bathroom,” Gloria says as she gently tugs Daryl’s hand leading him back to the house, she knew Daryl wouldn’t want to be in the infirmary.

Glenn, Rick, and Michonne follow the two back while Maggie heads back with Deanna to her house. As Carol was busy baking in the house, it wasn’t convenient for her to leave, so she was worriedly pacing as she waited for any updates. She sighs in relief when she sees them all enter the house, furrowing her brows at Daryl’s bruised face. He sighs as he sits on the kitchen stool at the island counter. 

“Daryl...” Rick starts as Gloria heads to the bathroom to grab the med kit, “what happened to you trying?” 

“I did try...” Daryl mutters, not looking up at his friend. 

“Rick, don’t give him shit for something he didn’t start,” Gloria says as she walks out with the med kit, she opens it, getting the materials she needs as she speaks, “Jacob provoked him to make it look like Daryl attacked him, I know how he works.”

Daryl looks at her dumbfounded, she wasn’t anywhere near him when Jacob approached him so she had no way of knowing, but she hit it spot on. He stays still as Gloria begins to clean the small cuts on his face with an alcohol swab. 

“Is that what happened?” Rick questions, he knew Daryl didn’t like being questioned but he also knew that Daryl understood that he had a job to do.

“Come on, Rick, we know Daryl, and I hate to say it, but me and Gloria know how Jacob is pretty well,” Glenn says. 

“What did he say to get you so riled up?” Carol asks, they all know Daryl had a temper but it would take a lot for him to actually throw the first punch. 

“Said some stupid shit ‘bout Gloria...” Daryl vaguely answers, he didn’t want to think about what Jacob had accused him of as he knew he would get angry again just at the thought.

Rick nods, understanding, “Daryl, I get that you don’t want to talk about what he said, but for your defense when you speak with Deanna, you need to tell her what Jacob said. Right now, he’s probably coming up with some elaborate story just to try and kick you out.”

Daryl nods but doesn’t say anything as Gloria finishes patching him up. Soon there is a sudden knock on the door. Rick opens the door as he was the closest one to it and Deanna steps inside with Maggie. 

“Gloria just finished patching him up, he was gonna come to you-” Rick starts before getting cut off by Deanna. 

“It’s okay Rick, I came by to let you all know that it’s been cleared up, Jacob went up to Daryl and provoked him.” Deanna says then smiles at Daryl, “he shouldn’t have said those things to you, Daryl.” 

“He told you that?” Glenn asks, shocked.

“No, Eric did,” Deanna tells them, “the window to his house was open while he was in his living room, he heard everything and told me exactly what went down.”

Gloria turns to Carol, “I’ll need you to make more cookies to thank Eric,” she says in a soft voice making Carol chuckle.

“What’s going to happen to them?” Michonne asks, furrowing her brow in concern.

“Jacob will be taken off the supply run team and be on house arrest for at least a week. And Daryl,” Deanna gives him a stern look, “I want you to promise me that nothing like this will ever happen again, even if they deserve it.” 

Daryl purses his lips then nods, “I promise.”

“Good,” Deanna smiles, she then looks at Gloria, “and Gloria, about what you said, you’re not an outsider and neither is Daryl, you’re one of us.”

She looks at every person in the room with a warm smile, “you are all one of us.”

They all smile back at her and then she takes her leave. Maggie stays back at the house with the others, closing the door after Deanna leaves. Michonne leaves shortly after with Rick to finish their patrol of the community. 

“Hey Daryl,” Glenn calls out after a short moment of silence, waiting for the man to look over at him, “what happened to beating Jacob up together?”

Daryl snorts out a laugh as Maggie and Carol chuckle, shaking their heads.

“What?” Gloria furrows her brows, “you two had a deal like that and **didn’t** include me? Now I feel betrayed.”

The others laugh at her reaction as she pretends to pout. The rest of the afternoon and evening proceeds with Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, and Gloria conversing in the kitchen, keeping Carol company as she bakes for the community and eventually gets to making dinner for the group. After dining, Daryl retreats to his and Gloria’s shared room while she goes to wash up and take a shower. She returns to their room once she’s cleaned up and smiles when she finds that Daryl had also already cleaned himself up. 

“Hey,” she calls out to him as she goes to sit beside him on the bed, “how are you feeling?” 

He nods as if to tell her he’s fine, not looking at her. She furrows her brow in worry at his behavior, there was something off about Daryl but Gloria wasn’t able to put her finger on it. He seemed more reserved and to himself, especially towards her after they had brought him home. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she persists.

He nods again, humming a yes this time but still not looking at her. Gloria sighs softly and takes his hand in hers, bringing it up to her lips and kissing it gently. Daryl steals a glance at her, biting his lip before speaking. 

“Earlier...” Daryl starts in a mumble, making her look at him, “ya called me... sweetheart...”

Gloria furrows her brow as she remembers that she did, a slow panic starts to rise in her chest as she now worries that she upset him by calling him that. However, before she can even ask, Daryl speaks again.

“I liked it...” he admits, shaking his hair in front of his face to hide the blush.

Gloria blinks before breaking out into a grin, “Daryl Dixon, you are the absolute cutest sweetheart in the world.”

“Stop...” Daryl scoffs as he feels his face getting even more red, his heart skipping a beat when she calls him the endearment again.

Gloria lets out a giggle at his reaction then moves to lie on the bed with him, cuddling him with her head on his chest. Like always, Daryl wraps his arm around her waist as an automatic reaction. 

“Why’d ya call me tha’ anyway? Ya never call me anythin’ but my name...” he asks.

“You weren’t responding to your name, and I guess... it just slipped out,” she shrugs. 

“I liked hearin’ it,” he says with a shy smile, coming to terms with his face being as red as a cherry.

“Just sweetheart or other nicknames in general?” Gloria says, a cheeky smile on her face.

“Like wha’?” Daryl asks. 

“Hm... like sweetie pie? Sweetie? Honey? Honey bun?” Gloria says, knowing that she was driving Daryl crazy as he chuckles at the suggestions and puts his hand to his face, “or baby?” 

“I ain’ no baby,” Daryl scoffs with a smirk.

“Alright, sweetheart it is, then,” Gloria chuckles then rolls so that she’s lying on top of him as she looks into his eyes, “My Daryl Sweetheart Dixon.”

Daryl smiles lovingly at her as he caresses her face with his thumb, “hope ya don’ call me that in front o’ the others though.”

“No promises,” Gloria whispers into his lips before pressing her lips on his in a tender kiss. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

Gloria had spent most of the next morning in the infirmary with Denise, helping her perfect her stitching technique and giving her pointers. It was Rosita’s turn to go out to collect herbs and she had already left earlier on. The two were conversing amongst themselves when the door to the infirmary opens, catching their attention as Pete walks into the room. 

“Hi, Pete.” Denise greets with an awkward smile.

He nods at her in greeting but doesn’t say anything as he makes a beeline to the pharmacy refrigerator. Gloria hesitantly walks up to him as he opens the door to the fridge. 

“I don’t think we formally met, I’m one of the new medics, Gloria.” she says, doing her best not to get annoyed that he wasn’t paying her any mind as she tries to introduce herself.

Pete finally looks at her and forces a smile on his face and nods, “I’ve heard of you, you’re Gena’s sister.” 

Gloria smiles tightly and nods, “I am.”

“Sorry, I’m in a bit of a rush right now, my wife is sick back home so I need to get back to her,” he explains as he grabs a cold compress from the refrigerator. 

“Is Jessie okay?” Denise asks, concern on her face.

“Yes, just a small cold, she’ll be fine. She has me.” Pete says with a chuckle.

Gloria tilts her head in confusion at his words but doesn’t rebuttal as Pete bids his farewell to the women and leaves the infirmary. She’d heard of people using a cold compress to help with a fever but not a cold. Gloria shrugs it off and doesn’t bring it up to Denise in case she was thinking too much to such a small detail; Pete might have said the wrong thing since he was in a rush to get back to his wife. 

A few hours later, Rosita had come back to the infirmary with the tupperware container and book of herbs. Gloria, Rosita, and Denise decided that they had enough to finally start planting in the herb garden and so they went out to the garden patch. It didn’t take them very long to plant the herbs due to Gloria asking Maggie for tips and pointers beforehand. 

“And I guess we’re done for the day,” Rosita announces with a content sigh. 

Denise grin proudly at the garden, “we did great, guys!”

“We did,” Gloria smiles and pats Denise’s shoulder, “guess we can call it in?”

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone else needs a medic otherwise we’d know about it,” Denise points out.

“And if they do, they know where to find us,” Gloria smiles at her colleagues.

After an agreement, the three of them part ways to each do their own things. As Gloria walks back towards her house, she hears Mindy calling out to her. She rolls her eyes before looking in her direction, stopping in her steps. 

“What do you want?” Gloria asks, keeping her distance.

“We need to talk,” Mindy says, a stern look on her face, “me, you, and Jacob.”

Gloria scoffs, “we have nothing to talk about,” she turns to walk away.

“What about Gena, huh? She wants to talk to you too, are you really going to ignore your sister?” Mindy says.

Gloria huffs as she stops walking and turns back around, glaring at Mindy, “if Gena **really** wanted to talk to me she’d have come herself, not send you as a damn messenger.” 

Without waiting for another response, Gloria walks away from Mindy, purposely ignoring her when the other woman calls out to her again. She looks in the direction of the main gates as she debates whether or not to go on a walk outside the walls. Gloria was actually worried that Gena would come find her if she stayed at the house, and right now she didn’t want to face her sister; she never wanted to face Gena because that never goes well. The revving of a motorcycle broke Gloria out of her train of thought as she stops in her tracks and looks around her for the source of the sound. A smile tugs at her lips as she sees Daryl mounted on his bike on Aaron’s driveway, adjusting the side mirrors. 

“Hey,” Gloria calls out as she walks up to him, Daryl smiles when he sees her, “fixed it up already?”

“Yeah, was ‘bout to take it out for a test ride…” he says, he then looks at her, pursing his lips together before extending his hand out to her, “ya still up for tha’ huntin’ date?”

Gloria smiles shyly as she nods, taking Daryl’s hand, “I thought you’d never ask.”

Daryl chuckles at her, then she gets on the bike behind him, her arms wrapping around his torso. He revs up the bike once more, his hand pats Gloria’s arms to make sure she has a tight hold on him then he zooms down the streets of Alexandria. He slows the bike as he reaches the main gate, waiting for Spencer, Deanna’s other son, to open it. Once the gate is open, he darts through and out of the community. 

Their ride is smooth and peaceful, a soft smile on Daryl’s lips as he feels the wind in his hair and his girl’s arms wrapped around him. They’d been riding for a bit before Daryl forced himself to stop, he was tempted to keep going, keep riding further and further out and not look back. He had everything he needed with him; Gloria, his crossbow, and his bike. He couldn’t just leave with her though, Daryl knew that. He couldn’t be selfish like that, no matter how much he wanted to leave Alexandria with her. Gloria still had family back there, even if she didn’t get along with her sister, she was still blood, and there was also Glenn. 

They’d parked Daryl’s bike to the side of the road and covered it with branches and bushes, wanting to keep it hidden so others wouldn’t find it. After making sure it was fully concealed, they start making their way into the woods.

“Hey,” Daryl calls out to her as they walk in the woods, “if I ask ya somethin’… can ya not get mad?”

Gloria looks at him with a raised eyebrow, “depends on the question.”

“‘Ts ‘bout yer sister…” Daryl says, pursing his lips.

He notices a change in her demeanor just like before when he mentions Gena as she slows her walking to a full stop, “…what about her?”

“Ya don’ get along with her,” Daryl points out, making Gloria scoff.

“Ain’t that an understatement… yeah, we don’t get along,” she shrugs.

“Why not?” he asks, genuinely curious.

He’d been wanting to ask her about it for the last few days, seeing how she acted around her sister worried him. Knowing how good her relationship with Glenn was, it surprised him how strained Gloria and Gena’s relationship seemed to be. 

“Why do we have to? It’s not like you always got along with Merle.” Gloria snaps suddenly, regret instantly hitting her when she realizes what she said, “Oh god… I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry…’

She raises her hands to her face when she feels tears well up in her eyes. Daryl frowns at this and steps up to her, gently pulling her towards him.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay…” he holds her close to him, shushing her as she keeps whispering that she’s sorry, he pulls from her slightly and caresses her face with his thumb, “I’m sorry I asked, didn’ mean to upset ya.”

“No, Daryl I-” she shakes her head.

“C’mon,” he interrupts her, taking her hand in his, “won’t be much of a huntin’ date if we don’t find anythin’.”

Gloria looks at him and smiles softly, knowing that he was trying to lighten her mood. Daryl gently tugs at her hand to have her follow behind him. The two of them walk for a while when they find an abandoned cabin nearby. They thought it best to clear it out, make it a safe house for emergencies like they had back at the prison. After making sure that there was no one inside, alive or dead, they proceed to go inside to attempt to clean it up a bit. 

“Seems to be a’right,” Daryl says, looking out the murky windows of the cabin, “ain’t too far from Alexandria and hidden enough so people can’t find it.” 

Gloria nods in agreement as she looks around the place, it was dusty as if it had been left for a while, but it was still livable. There was a wooden square table with a few chairs surrounding it, a fireplace, shelves along the wall, and a couch just sat under the window. There was even a small bedroom in the cabin. 

“We can do what we did last time, stock it up, but this time let the others know about it,” she says, sitting down on the couch. 

“Yeah,” Daryl says, then he goes over to the shelves to see if there’s anything worth keeping. 

Gloria watches him walk over to the shelves and she lets out a small sigh. Her mind brought her back to Daryl’s question about Gena and she felt bad about snapping at him the way she did. It wasn’t fair of her to do that to him when all he wanted to do was care about her. 

“Gena and I…” she starts, catching Daryl’s attention as he turns to look at her, “I don’t know why we don’t get along.”

“Ya don’ have to tell me anythin’,” he says as he walks towards her.

“Just listen to me, Daryl…” Gloria sighs, and Daryl carefully kneels down in front of her as he caresses her face with his hand, “we never got along… We’ve always been at odds with one another for as long as I can remember. She’s never said it, but I’m pretty sure it’s because she hates me…”

“Why would she hate ya?” Daryl says, frowning; he couldn’t believe that anyone could hate her. 

“She never told me… but I think it has to do with Glenn…” Gloria sighs and continues when Daryl stays silent, his eyes urging her to go on, “she babies Glenn, always has… she never gives him shit and puts him on a pedestal, but with me it’s the opposite, he’s like her perfect angel while I’m the devil.”

“But ya don’t resent Glenn,” Daryl points out the obvious.

“Of course I don’t, how could I when he’s the only one who’s ever stood up for me? Glenn took care of me when no one else ever did, my parents and aunts and uncles would always tell me to get along with Gena and that she’s only trying to care for me… they’d always ask why I’m causing shit with Gena, or why I can’t just get along with her…” Gloria rants, sighing when she feels tears in her eyes as she goes on.

Seeing this, Daryl gets up from his spot on the ground and sits beside Gloria. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she lets him pull her into his embrace. He plants a gentle kiss on the top of her head, and waits for her to continue. 

“That’s why… that’s why I snapped the way I did when you asked me why we don’t get along… I know you didn’t mean it that way, but it… the question just brought back all those memories…” Gloria says, sniffling as tears roll down her cheeks, “but how could I ever get along with her with the way she treats me? Like everything I try to do is wrong, or anything bad that happens is always my fault… and when I talk back to her… of course I’m just being disrespectful to her because I’m the younger one talking back to my older sister…”

Daryl stays silent as she lets out how she feels about her sister. He feels like she’s been holding this in for her entire life and no one knew how she truly felt, not even Glenn. Her words let him understand her more, it answered the long question of why she always blamed herself for things that had nothing to do with her. Gena had programmed that into her brain, and that just angered Daryl. 

“I could never win any arguments with her… of course I couldn’t, she’s a lawyer for God’s sake… it’s her job to argue and win…” Gloria scoffs and leans her head on Daryl’s chest and he gives her another kiss on the head, “it got really bad in high school because that’s when I found out Jacob had been bullying Glenn for two years…”

“Two years?” Daryl furrows his brows at this.

Gloria sighs softly and nods, ”yeah… Jacob is Mindy’s brother… Glenn took the bullying because he didn’t want to hurt Gena’s friendship…”

“But they found out when ya punched him?” Daryl asks.

“No… Glenn didn’t want me to tell them anything… he made me promise him…” Gloria sighs.

“Wouldn’ ya have told Gena an’ Mindy when they confront ya ‘bout hittin’ Jacob?” Daryl furrows his brows, tattling seems to be that prick’s way.

“That’s the thing, he didn’t tell them I was the one who did it… apparently when I punched him, he fell in love with me…” Gloria rolls her eyes, “he said that not telling his sister was his way of protecting me and tried using that to get me to go on a date with him…” 

“An’ when ya said no to that… he threatened ya with Glenn?” Daryl recalls what Glenn had told him and he feels her nod.

“Yeah… he knew Glenn was my weakness… and when Gena and Mindy found out about us going on some stupid dates, they were pushing us to get together… but I said no and of course, Mindy gets offended that I’m rejecting her brother, Gena accuses me of leading him on…” Gloria sighs at the memory, “and that’s when Glenn stepped in… he told them about the bullying and that I was only trying to protect him by going on the dates.”

“Guessin’ they shut up after that?” Daryl says.

Gloria scoffs, “I wish… Mindy convinced Gena that Jacob was a saint somehow and that he liked me for a while and that’s the only reason he started bullying Glenn… to get close to me so of course, Glenn being bullied was all my fault because that asshole doesn’t know how to approach girls… Gena wouldn’t even listen to Glenn… it was all so fucked up…”

She sniffles and wipes the tears from her face then continues, “after that, it just got worse… we fought every single day… I felt bad for Glenn, he’d always be caught in the middle… I got so sick of everything that I tried to leave the first chance I got… could barely convince my parents to let me move out since Gena would pipe in that I couldn’t take care of myself… but that’s when Glenn told them he’d come with me and make sure nothing happened to me… should have seen the look on Gena’s face…”

“He’s a good brother,” Daryl smiles at that. 

“He’s the best there is,” Gloria chuckles tearfully then sighs, “it’s been seven years since I last saw her, you’d think I’d grow up or something in all that time…”

“Ya did, I’m sure ya did,” he furrows his brows in confusion at her words, how could she think she hadn’t grown?

“Then tell me why I revert back to the 17 year old kid every time I try to talk back to Gena…” Gloria says.

Daryl knew what she was talking about, he’d noticed it, and he was sure the others did as well. Gloria was always able to speak confidently when confronted by others, but he’d witnessed her tense up and somewhat freeze when she spoke with Gena. In those moments, she looked afraid and insecure. That was a side of her that he’d never seen before, and if he were to be completely honest, he didn’t ever think he’d see that side of her. 

“It happens,” he tells her, making Gloria look up at him with questioning eyes, “I used to be like that… with Merle.” 

“Really?” she asks.

“Yeah… could never really look him in the eye when I talked to him… but I think that changed when I met ya,” he says with a soft smile, “first time I really stood up to him was for ya…”

“I think the first time I was able to look her in the eyes while confronting her was for you too,” Gloria smiles at him, “I was shaky… but it’s something?”

“It’s somethin’,” he leans in to peck her lips, “ya can start slow, dealin’ with her ain’t the same as dealin’ with Merle, yer sister makes my brother sound like a saint.”

Gloria scoffs playfully and rolls her eyes, “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but wasn’t he into all kinds of drugs?”

“He was, but all ya needed to do to deal with him was beat him up,” Daryl shrugs, making Gloria chuckle and nod in agreement, he purses his lips together before speaking again, “can I ask ya somethin’ again?”

“Go ahead, I’ll try not to snap this time,” she says, smiling softly.

“Gena’s a bitch to ya… but do ya hate her?” Daryl asks, carefully reading her change in expression as she looks down and shakes her head to the question.

“No, I can’t hate her… she’s a bitch and treats me like shit, but… she’s family, and I just want her to accept me as family too because I love her regardless…” she glances back up at Daryl and chuckles softly, “that sounds so stupid, doesn’t it…”

“Nah, I get it. Merle treated me like shit too… but he’s family… I get it,” Daryl rubs her arm in comfort, he ponders in deep thought for a moment before speaking again, “Ya should try an’ make up with her.”

“What?” Gloria furrows her brows at him in confusion, “she hates me and wants to kick you out, she hasn’t said it but she’s very clearly against us being together, and you want me to-”

“Jus’ hear me out, a’right?” Daryl interrupts her before she can get too worked up, “I don’ want ya to regret like I did with Merle.” 

Gloria’s expression softens at his words, understanding what he was trying to say, “Daryl…”

“The world is shit now, we never know who we’re gonna lose next. I never got a chance to properly make up with Merle… an’ now I never will… I don’ want that to happen to ya…” he tells her.

Gloria never knew Daryl felt that way with Merle’s death, he’d never told her that before. Her heart hurt for him. She puts her hand on his and squeezes it gently, nodding at his suggestion.

“Okay,” she says, “I’ll have to figure out how to… but I’ll try.”

“Tha’s my girl,” Daryl says with a smile as he pulls her in for a deep kiss.

—

Early the next morning, Daryl had left Alexandria with Aaron on their recruitment run. Glenn had also left that early afternoon with the supply run crew along with Eugene. They had planned a run to a warehouse where Eugene would be able to find them the parts they needed to restore the power within the community. After sending them all off on their runs, Gloria returned back to the house to get ready for her shift at the infirmary. 

“Gloria, do you have a minute?” Rick calls out as he makes his way down the stairs.

She looks up at him and sees him in his uniform, “if I say no, will I be charged for obstruction of justice?” 

Rick chuckles and shakes his head, “no, no you won’t.”

“Well, what can I do for you, Officer Grimes?” Gloria asks with a teasing grin.

“Just wanted to ask you something,” he says with a gentle smile then his expression turns serious, “Pete Anderson, what kind of person is he?”

“Pete? The surgeon?” Gloria tilts her head.

“Yeah, you work in the infirmary, I thought out of all of us, you’d know him the most,” RIck explains.

“Well, I only met him yesterday actually. He barely comes into the infirmary. He only came by yesterday to get an ice pack,” Gloria tells him.

“An ice pack?” Rick furrows his brow.

“Or a cold compress, he said his wife had a cold?” Gloria says then she crosses her arms, “he might have meant fever, never heard of anyone using a cold compress for a cold before.”

Rick’s demeanor changes as he registers her words, “no… Jessie doesn’t have a cold… or a fever…”

Gloria frowns as she notices the change and steps towards him, picking up that his words are not as simple as they seem, perhaps he was hinting at something much more sinister, “Rick… what’s going on?”

He looks at her but doesn’t say anything for a moment, as if contemplating on whether he should say what was on his mind, but he shakes his head, “nothing… I’m just trying to figure something out… until I do, do me a favor and keep your eye on Pete.”

“I…” Gloria stutters then sighs when Rick gives her a look, “okay, I will.”

“Thank you,” Rick says, patting her arm then he heads for the door.

“Rick,” she calls out, making him look back at her, “I have to ask… does this have anything to do with what you’ve been meeting Daryl and Carol for?”

Gloria had noticed that the three of them had been going outside the walls together. She was sure she wasn’t the only one who noticed; they told the others that they were taking Carol to teach her how to shoot when she already knew how to shoot quite well. 

Rick narrows his eyes, “did Daryl tell you anything?”

She rolls her eyes at him, “you’re seriously asking that question? Come on, Rick, it’s **Daryl**.” 

He chuckles softly at her retort, knowing what she meant by it, “you’re right… Daryl wouldn’t say anything…”

“Should he?” Gloria presses on.

Rick looks at her, pondering for a moment before he speaks, “we were out there discussing a plan in case things go wrong here, we haven’t told anyone because we didn’t see the need to yet… this place is… it’s good.”

“Yeah, it is.” Gloria nods, “just… don’t do anything too drastic.”

Rick rolls his eyes at her and scoffs playfully, “Yeah, I’ll try.” 

Gloria chuckles as Rick opens the front door of the house and walks out, Gloria follows him out and closes the door behind her. They go down the steps together then part ways as Gloria makes her way to the infirmary. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon there, teaching Denise the basics of CPR, and the proper ways to apply bandages with Rosita. A knock on the infirmary door interrupts their lesson and the door opens shortly after as Gena walks into the room. 

“There you are,” she says when she sees Gloria, “I need to talk to you.”

Gloria sighs and nods, then she glances back at Denise, “I’ll be right back,” she then follows Gena into the waiting room.

“When I made you take off your cardigan at the party, I didn’t know about your scars. Did you really think I’d purposely do that?” Gena says after a short but tense silence.

Gloria bites her lips together, hesitant to answer but nods sheepishly, “yeah…”

“Why would I ever do that to you?” Gena asks, sadness in her voice.

“I don’t know…” Gloria shrugs, avoiding eye contact with her sister, “because you hate me?”

Gena sighs heavily and is about to say something else when a voice calls out from outside accompanied by a series of honks.

“Help! Somebody help!” 

Gloria’s ears perk up at the sound, glancing at Gena who also had a worried look on her face as she too must have recognised the all too familiar voice, “Glenn…”

Without another word, Gloria bolts out of the infirmary towards the commotion and sees Glenn helping Eugene carry a bloodied Tara out of the truck while he continues to call for help. She turns around and looks at Rosita who is now in the doorway of the infirmary.

“Clear the bed, get gauze, bandages and disinfectant, we’re bringing her in!” Gloria orders before rushing over to help them carry Tara. 

“Lay her down here,” Rosita tells them as they rush her into the building.

Gloria looks around, “where’s Denise?”

“She went to get Pete,” Rosita informs.

“Okay, Rosita, hook her up to the heart monitor and keep an eye on her vitals,” Gloria instructs, going over to Tara and removing the makeshift bandage from her head.

Glenn pulls Eugene and Gena outside into the waiting area of the infirmary to give the others more room. Gloria frowns as the wound on her head was still bleeding. Quickly, she grabs the gauze Rosita had laid out earlier on the side table and presses a thick layer onto the wound. Gloria swears under her breath as she sees that blood is starting to soak through the gauze. She takes another thick layer, removes the soaked through gauze and replaces it with a clean one, applying the same amount of pressure. 

“Rosita, I’m gonna need more gauze at this rate.” Gloria says, glancing up at her. 

“Got it,” Rosita responds, going to the supply cabinet to get more.

Just then, the door opens and Denise comes back in with a frustrated look on her face, “Pete says he’s got something to do and he’s going to be here later.”

“We’ll have to do this without him then,” Gloria says.

She had already gone through four layers of gauze and the bleeding finally seems to be coming to a stop. Looking up, she gestures Denise to come over to her side and shows her how to apply the right amount of pressure on the wound. 

“That’s right, keep holding it there,” Gloria says, removing her hands from the gauze, “I’m gonna get you some sutures and you’re gonna do her stitches.”

“What?!” Denise looks at her, bewildered, “I-I can’t… I…”

“Yes, you can.” Gloria tells her with a reassuring smile, “you can do this, and if you need any help, I’m right here with you. You’ll be okay.”

Denise purses her lips together then looks at Tara’s unconscious body, then she looks back up at Gloria and nods, “I can do this.”

Gloria nods at her and pats her arm gently before going to the supply cabinet to get the sutures for Denise. She places them on the table by Denise and then looks over to the screen of the monitor. She lets out a sigh of relief when she sees that Tara’s vitals put her out of the danger zone. She smiles when she sees Denise stitching up Tara’s wound, a feeling of pride in her heart at how focused she was. Trusting her with the rest of the steps, Gloria goes to the waiting room to find Glenn, Maggie, and Eugene waiting for news of Tara. 

“How is she?!” Eugene practically jumps out of the chair when he sees Gloria.

“She’s gonna be fine,” Gloria smiles at him reassuringly, “Denise is finishing up with her stitches, but with how much blood she lost it may take her a few days before she wakes up.”

“It’s good… that you stopped the bleeding…” Glenn nods. 

Gloria looks over at him and furrows her brows in concern, his eyes were swollen and bloodshot, “Glenn… are you okay?” 

He shakes his head, not looking up at her, “not really…”

“They lost Aiden… and Noah…” Maggie informs her as she stands beside Glenn.

“What…?” Gloria’s eyes well up with tears at the devastating news. 

She barely knew either of them, but she knew that Noah was a good kid. He was always the one trying to cheer people up, he was one of the brighter ones of their group. Gloria’s heart broke for Glenn, she knew that he’d taken him in as sort of a younger brother. 

“Someone… someone needs to tell Deanna about Aiden,” Gloria says, clearing her throat to keep from crying.

“Rick came by earlier to see how Tara was doing, Glenn told him what happened and he’s telling Deanna with Gena,” Maggie says with a tight smile, appreciating that Gloria was again trying to put up a strong front. 

“Okay…” Gloria looks over at Eugene, “you can stay here with her if you like, but like I said it may take her a few days to wake up.”

“Acknowledged, I’ll stay with her,” he says, not looking at her as he goes into the room where Tara lays.

Gloria looks back at Glenn, “are you hurt anywhere?” 

Glenn shakes his head again, “no.”

“I gotta finish up some stuff here, Tara’s gonna be okay, go back home and get some rest, okay?” Gloria tells him, she then looks at Maggie.

She nods at Gloria, understanding her silent message then carefully ushers Glenn out of the infirmary back to their house. Gloria wipes her eyes and then makes her way back into the room where Denise and Rosita are with Eugene and Tara. She checks her wound and makes sure to let Denise know that she did everything perfectly. Noting that Tara’s vitals are at a good pace, she takes her leave back to the house with Rosita’s persistence that she should make sure Glenn’s doing okay. When Gloria got back to the house, she found Rick standing outside on the porch. 

“Hey, is Glenn okay?” she asks as she goes up the steps to meet them.

“Yeah, resting in his room now with Maggie,” Rick tells her. 

Gloria nods, slightly relieved that her brother has Maggie to take care of him, “Glenn said you know what happened?” She didn’t want Glenn to tell her, she didn’t want him to relive it all.

“Yeah… the run was going well until Aiden shot at a walker that had a grenade. He shot it, blew it up, accidentally hurt Tara and got himself impaled on a shelf. A herd was coming after them, Glenn and Noah were trying to get him off but Nicholas bolted.” Rick explains.

“He just… he left them?” Gloria frowns, feeling the anger building in her system.

“There’s more…” Rick sighs, “when they couldn’t get Aiden off the shelf in time… they had to run… then they got trapped in a set of revolving doors. Glenn came up with a plan but Nicholas didn’t listen, Glenn said… Glenn said he ran, just left them both behind and he had to watch Noah get torn apart…”

Rick’s words made it clear why Glenn looked so mortified, he had to watch one of his friends die. All because of a selfish coward who only looked out for himself. She feels her blood boil at the thought of him and she curses under her breath.

“I talked to Deanna about the incident… she says that Nicholas… he told her that Glenn was the one who wanted to leave them behind… made up a whole story to make himself look good…” Rick seethes in anger.

“That… asshole…” Gloria curses under her breath then turns to leave him but before she can bolt down the steps to find Nicholas, Rick grabs her arm and pulls her back.

“Don’t,” he tells her in a low voice, “I know you’re angry, I am too, but you **can’t**.”

Gloria looks at him with a frown, “that prick got Noah killed, wanted to leave without Glenn and lied about it all, and you’re telling me **not** to do anything?!”

“ **Glenn** doesn’t want you to do anything,” Rick says, “he told me Noah wanted this place to work for us.”

Gloria sighs heavily and nods, understanding, “and if we want it to work… I can’t beat up that piece of shit…“

Rick lets out a breath and nods, patting her shoulder as he lets go of her arm, “yeah… they’re just going to have to learn how to do things the hard way.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

The next morning, Gloria was in the kitchen, making some breakfast for Glenn. Maggie told her that he was barely able to sleep just before she left for Deanna’s house. Gloria pours her cooked oatmeal into a bowl that was set on a tray then arranges some canned fruit on top of it. She takes the tray and makes her way up the stairs where Glenn and Maggie’s room was. 

“Room service,” Gloria calls out after she knocks a few times, “you better not be naked because I’m coming in.”

“Why would I be naked?” Glenn questions, sitting on the side of his bed when Gloria opens the door.

“I don’t know, you’re weird like that?” Gloria chuckles softly then closes the door behind her, “brought you some breakfast.” 

“That’s not the… ‘Gloria Special’ is it?” Glenn teases. 

“No, it’s not, you’re not **that** lucky,” she chuckles as she sits beside him and carefully puts the tray in his lap. 

Glenn chuckles as well, shaking his head and looks down at the bowl of oatmeal, smiling at the smiley face Gloria had arranged with the canned fruit, “thanks…”

“I heard from Rick what happened… I’m sorry,” Gloria says, gently patting his back, “are you gonna be okay?”

“Honestly… I don’t know… I can’t even say I saw anything like that before… all that blood… his screaming… his eyes just…” Glenn closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, “I don’t think I can even eat…”

Gloria purses her lips as she watches her brother, her brows furrowed in worry. She was never good at consoling someone who was mourning, she never knew what to say. From experience, Gloria just knew Glenn had to go through it but that didn’t mean it hurt her any less to see him so upset. 

“Well… you better eat that,” Gloria nudges him, making him look at her, “I made that specially for you, don’t you go and insult me now.”

Glenn scoffs playfully at her words, “I’m not insulting you… it’s just… I can’t.”

“Sure you can,” Gloria says, she takes the spoon from the tray and scoops up some oatmeal with a bit of fruit, “open wide, say ‘ahh’.”

He finally smiles and lets out a chuckle as he tries to dodge Gloria’s spoon, “alright, I can eat, just put it down.”

Gloria complies and puts the spoon back into the bowl, “I’m shit at comforting you, I know you know that already, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try and it definitely doesn’t mean I’m not here for you.”

“I know, you’re always there for me,” Glenn smiles at her, then he looks down at the tray of food, “I’ll get to finishing this… and then I’m gonna go find Nicholas.”

Gloria frowns at his words then she raises her hand like a child in elementary school, her action making Glenn shake his head, “no, not to beat him up.”

“But you should…” Gloria says, lowering her hand.

“I need to set him straight, he got Noah killed… he needs to own up to that, I’m gonna tell him he can’t leave Alexandria, not alone and especially not with anyone.” Glenn says, his tone serious.

“He’s never going to agree to that,” Gloria points out the obvious.

“I’m gonna make him.” Glenn says.

Gloria tilts her head and gives him a look, “since when did you turn into me?”

Glenn rolls his eyes, “always had it in me, I just barely ever showed you that side.”

“Yeah, for 26 years you never showed me that side of you,” Gloria scoffs at him.

“Well, you had to have gotten it from somewhere,” Glenn retorts.

“I was born with it,” Gloria chuckles, “you sure you don’t want me there with you when you confront him?”

Glenn shakes his head, “I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ll have some of your strength after I eat this,” he gestures to the tray. 

“Of course you will, it’s made with love,” Gloria grins at him then she gets up from the bed, “I’m gonna head out, gotta make sure Tara’s okay and then check on Eric’s ankle. If that prick gives you any trouble-”

“I know where to find you,” Glenn interrupts her and chuckles.

Gloria smiles at him and pats his shoulder once more before making her way to the infirmary to check on Tara, both Eugene and Denise had stayed the whole night to keep an eye on her. Before leaving, Gloria didn’t miss the look on Denise’s face as she looked over Tara. Keeping the thoughts to herself though, she goes back to her house and picks up a batch of Carol’s freshly baked cookies and heads on to Eric’s house. 

“Coming!” he calls out from inside after Gloria had knocked on his door.

“Take your time,” Gloria calls back with a slight chuckle. 

Shortly after, the door opens and Eric greets her with a smile as he leans on the doorframe, “you making housecalls now?” 

“Just for you,” Gloria smiles back.

Eric lets her inside his house and Gloria helps him walk to the living room, letting him sit first as his ankle hasn’t healed yet. She places the container of cookies on the coffee table then sits down on the single seater beside Eric.

“I came by to check up on you, and…” Gloria starts, she pushes the container on the table towards Eric, “I also wanted to thank you for telling Deanna the truth about what happened the other day with Daryl and Jacob. You didn’t have to speak up, but you did.”

“I’ll take the cookies, but I have to say, I did have to speak up,” Eric smiles warmly at her, “you’re all good people, Daryl is a good person. Aaron sees it, and I see it, and I didn’t want us to miss out on a good person just because some people here don’t like newcomers.”

“It’s not just because we’re newcomers,” Gloria chuckles.

“Oh, I know. Believe me, I heard it all,” Eric grins teasingly at her when he sees her blush, “look at you, girl, you got two good looking men fighting for you, makes me a little jealous.”

“Would you like to be in my shoes?” Gloria teases back. 

Eric playfully scoffs at her, “no, please no. I’m having my fun watching as an audience.”

Gloria rolls her eyes at his words and laughs, she then purses her lips together before asking what’s been in the back of her mind, “what exactly did Jacob say about me to make Daryl that angry?”

“I… don’t know if I should be the one to tell you,” Eric says, grimacing.

“Hm… alright, take it as if you owe me,” Gloria says, earning a confused frown from Eric, “you listened in on my conversation with Glenn.”

Eric chuckles softly and sigh, defeated, “alright… I can’t even tell you to not tell anyone it was me since I’m the only one who knows other than Daryl and Jacob.”

“I won’t bring it up to Daryl, I promise. I’m just… curious.” she shrugs. 

“Well… you know how… at the party you… showed your scars?” Eric starts, slightly hesitant but continues when Gloria nods, “Jacob threw an accusation at Daryl that he was the one who… hurt you.”

Gloria’s smile is gone once she registered his words, she lets out a breath to calm herself down, “that son of a bitch…”

“Hey,” Eric reaches out to her and carefully puts his hand on her shoulder, “what did you just promise me?”

“That I wouldn’t bring it up to Daryl,” Gloria restates.

Eric nods, “and that **includes** not going after Jacob for what he said because if you do, everyone’s going to know I told you.”

Gloria chuckles softly and nods, “alright fine… thanks for telling me and for having our backs.”

Just before Eric was able to respond, glass shattering from another house interrupts their conversation. A commotion erupts from outside and Gloria gets up to check it out, letting Eric stay on the couch to rest his foot. Gloria frowns when she sees Rick beating the life out of Pete on the ground, both of their faces bloody. 

“Shit…” she mutters under her breath then turns to Eric, “Rick’s beating up Pete.”

She rushes outside and by the time she reaches the forming crowd, Rick had already pulled out his gun, aiming it at the others. Gloria frowns at this, where did he get the gun? They had given all of their guns to Olivia to put in the armory for safe keeping. 

Kneeling beside an unconscious Pete, Rick looks around at the crowd, “the way you all do things is over! If you want this place to stay standing, to stay safe, you’re all going to have to change! We’re going to have to **control** who lives here.” 

“That’s never been more clear to me than it is right now.” Deanna says, eyeing Rick.

Rick scoffs and points to himself, “Me? You mean **me**?! Your way of doing things is going to get people killed, it’s **already** gotten people killed! I’m not going to stand by and just let it happen, I-”

Michonne has enough of Rick’s ranting and knocks him on the side of the head, glaring at his now unconscious body. She lets out a sigh as she looks up at Deanna with an apologetic frown. Gloria lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding then looks to Glenn who’s also in the crowd. She signals to him to help her bring Rick to the infirmary.

“I’d like it if you brought him to one of the empty houses instead of the infirmary.” Deanna calls out when Gloria and Glenn start to carry Rick’s body, “he wasn’t in his right mind just now and I’m afraid that he might not be when he wakes up, and I can’t have that kind of risk in the infirmary or wandering freely within the walls.”

Gloria and Glenn nod, understanding that Deanna just wants the people of Alexandria safe and they knew how Rick could be when he loses his mind. Michonne tells Deanna that she’ll keep watch over him as she’s the other constable and follows Gloria and Glenn into one of the empty houses, placing Rick’s body on the hardwood floor. 

—

“How is he?” Glenn asks when he sees his sister walking into the house; Gloria had just finished patching up Rick.

“He’ll be fine, minor scrapes and bruises. I feel like Michonne did more damage to him than Pete,” Gloria chuckles softly. 

“It’s a good thing she stopped it before things got worse,” Glenn says.

“How much worse could it get, Deanna’s holding a meeting tonight on whether or not to kick Rick out,” Maggie informs, a frown on her face.

“Dammit… I told him not to do anything drastic…” Gloria shakes her head.

“Wait, you knew there was something going on?” Glenn asks, furrowing his brow.

“He asked me about Pete yesterday, didn’t tell me why, just told me to keep my eye on him…” Gloria crosses her arms on her chest, “you think this has anything to do with him not coming to help Tara?”

“No… it’s a lot deeper than that…” Carol says with a sigh, she then continues when the others look at her, waiting for her to speak, “Pete’s been hitting Jessie and her boys.”

The others look at her in bewilderment at her words, but it all makes sense. It wasn’t very subtle that Rick had feelings for Jessie no matter how much he denied it or tried to play it off. Although the news surprised them, they all understood that Rick was only trying to protect someone he started to care for. 

“At least now he has a fighting chance of winning the others over,” Gloria says, “as long as he tells them the truth about what happened and why he did it-”

“You really think they’re going to let this slide even with that as a reason? These people… they see what they want to see, and all they saw out there was an outsider beating up their doctor,” Glenn says.

“He’s not a damn doctor, he’s just a man who beats his wife and kids. He didn’t even come out to the infirmary to help with Tara yesterday, Rick **should** have killed him,” Gloria says, anger in her voice.

After learning about Daryl’s abusive past and knowing about Carol’s relationship with her late husband, Ed, Gloria had absolutely no tolerance for people like Pete. 

“No, that would have made things so much worse, especially with what Gabriel told Deanna,” Maggie says, frowning.

“What did Gabriel tell Deanna?” Carol asks.

“He said that she shouldn’t have let us in here, that we’re the devil.” Maggie informs.

“I’d probably go to hell for punching a priest, right?” Gloria scoffs, earning a disapproving look from Glenn. 

“I’ll try to talk to Deanna, see what the odds are like for Rick,” Maggie says, “you all check on him, set his story straight before the meeting.”

The others nod in agreement and follow her out of the house. As Maggie said, she went off to find Deanna at her house while the others went to the house Rick was temporarily kept in. When they enter, they see that Rick had already woken up while Michonne sat on the chair across the mattress. 

“Where’d you get the gun?” Michonne asks. 

“You took it, right? From the armory?” Carol answers for Rick, making the others glance at her, “that was stupid, why’d you do it?”

Rick ponders for a moment and sighs, “just in case.”

“Well… Deanna’s planning to have a meeting tonight, for anyone who wants to.” Glenn informs him.

“To discuss whether or not you’re going to be kicked out,” Gloria says, then she sighs, “Rick… I told you not to do anything drastic.”

“Now you’ve given them a reason to try and kick you out,” Carol says, then adds when Glenn looks at her, “they’re going to try.”

“We don’t know that,” Glenn sighs, “look, Maggie’s with Deanna and she’s trying to see this through.”

“At the meeting, you say you were worried about someone being abused and no one was doing anything about it,” Carol instructs, “you say you took a gun to keep Jessie safe from a man who wound up attacking you.”

“You want him to lie?” Gloria furrows her brows.

“It’s not a lie, Pete was hurting Jessie,” Carol argues. 

“But that’s not why Rick had the gun,” Gloria points out.

“It’s not, but we can tell them that it was,” Carol says, “we tell them a story that they want to hear. It’s what I’ve been doing since we got here.”

Gloria glances at Glenn, their expressions mirroring each other, “but… why?”

“Because these people are children and children like stories.” Carol says, matter-of-factly.

“But what happens after Rick tells them what they want to hear, but they still want him out?” Glenn asks, “they’re guarding the armory now.”

“We still have knives,” Carol says.

Gloria sighs, “we won’t need them for these people… barely any of them know how to fight.” 

“Well tonight, at the meeting, if it looks like it’s going bad, I’ll whistle. Carol grabs Deanna, I take Spencer, Michonne takes Reg. Glenn and Gloria cover us, watch the crowd.” Rick explains.

“We can talk to them,” Michonne argues, it was very clear that she was not approving of what Rick was saying.

“Yeah, and we will. If we still can’t get through to them then we’ll take the three of them and tell them that we’ll kill them.” Rick says, “we just tell them we will, then they give us the armory and it’s over.”

Glenn ponders and glances at Gloria before looking at Rick, “did you want this?”

“No,” Rick says simply, “I hit my limit… I screwed up.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to hold anyone hostage tonight…” Gloria sighs and walks out of the house, followed by Glenn and Carol. 

As the three of them approach their house, Carol goes inside first, saying something about making a casserole while the siblings stay outside, standing by the porch. Gloria looks at Glenn and sighs.

“You’re gonna be there tonight, right?” she asks him.

“Yeah, I should be there.” Glenn nods.

“We’re going to have to talk for Rick, vouch for him, everyone else is going to argue against him,” Gloria says, “you’re gonna have to talk.”

“Why me?” Glenn crosses his arms.

“Because Gena’s gonna be there and you know how I get with her around, I might just make things worse for Rick,” Gloria tells him.

“You’re going to need to learn at some point… but okay, I’ll talk tonight.” Glenn says, smiling at her reassuringly, “but on one condition, you try to make up with Gena. I don’t want to keep seeing you two like this.”

Gloria sighs deeply then nods, “I’ll try…”

“Wait… what?” Glenn tilts his head then continues when Gloria raises an eyebrow at him, “I thought I’d need to convince you a lot more than that.” 

Gloria shrugs, “Daryl told me to.”

“Ah, I see, you only listen to Daryl now,” Glenn teases.

Gloria scoffs and playfully smacks his arm, “go find Maggie and see what’s going on with Deanna.”

He laughs at his sister’s reaction and nods, going on his way, “yes, ma’am.”

—

The sun was beginning to set and people of Alexandria began gathering in front of Deanna’s house for the meeting. Some people were seated, others like Gena and Mindy were standing about waiting for Deanna to come out and start the meeting. Gloria finds Carol and Maggie in the crowd and goes to stand by them. 

“Hey,” Maggie greets her, “where’s Glenn?”

Gloria furrows her brow at her question, “I thought he went to find you.”

“He did, but then he went off, I thought he would be with you.” Maggie says.

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Carol says, reassuring the two. 

Unfortunately, as hours went by, Glenn did not show up and neither did Rick. The sun had gone down and it was now dark, and so Deanna decided to begin the meeting even without Rick or Pete present. Anxiety and nerves began to take over Gloria as Glenn was not around, she knew she would need to say something to defend Rick. Carol was first to speak from their group, then it was Maggie. Deanna then spoke up and told the members of the community what Gabriel had told her about Rick and his group. Maggie excuses herself to go find Gabriel to clear up what he had said and Gloria knows that she needs to speak now as Carol looks at her, nodding to her in reassurance. 

Gloria lets out a deep breath and raises her hand, “may I… may I say something, on behalf of my brother and myself?”

Gena looks at her with a stern look on her face but says nothing as Deanna nods, “go ahead.”

“I’m not going to go on and on about how Rick saved us or how many times he saved us, Carol and Maggie already covered that. I want to talk about what you know, and I’m not talking about him being a dangerous person,” she looks around then at Deanna, “I’m talking about what you all know deep down and it’s that he knows how to protect his family, he knows what to do when it comes to dangerous situations. He knows how to **survive**.”

“Does surviving mean beating a man half to death?” Mindy scoffs.

“Mindy.” Gena says under her breath to stop her friend.

“He was trying to protect a friend, someone he cares about.” Gloria glances at all the people of Alexandria, “don’t you **dare** gloss over that. You people say that you’re trying to protect this place but you turn a blind eye when someone is **actually** getting hurt. And when someone else tries to stop it, he’s suddenly worse than a murderer. Is that the kind of community this is?”

The others are quiet, not knowing what to say to that but they don’t need to speak as a bloody Rick appears, throwing a dead walker onto the ground. Gloria mentally face palms and swears at him under her breath.

“No one was guarding the gate. It was open and walkers came in. I killed them all on my own and saved everyone from getting bit. **I** did that.” Rick heaves, “I will be the one to show each and every one of you how to survive but in order to do that, you **all** have to **change**. Luck runs out.”

“You’re not one of us!” a drunken Pete appears at the entrance of the small courtyard wielding a long blade. 

All of the attendees of the meeting stand up at the sight of him, worried that either Pete or Rick were going to fight again. Reg goes up to him and tries to stop him from causing any more trouble, attempting to calm him down. 

“No…. no!” Pete says angrily, slicing Reg’s throat causing him to fall back.

Deanna screams at the sight of her husband bleeding out profusely. She catches her dying husband and Gloria is immediately by his side. She had taken off her cardigan, pressing it to his wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. His blood soaks through the bunched up fabric almost instantly. 

“We need to get him to the infirmary, now!” Gloria shouts for the others to help but freezes when Reg stops moving entirely, “Reg…? Reg!”

He was already gone. There was no more struggle or pain in his now lifeless eyes. Deanna looks up at Rick, her sadness turning into anger.

“Rick.” she calls out, rage evident in her voice, “do it.”

Without hesitation, Rick turns around from Deanna to Pete who was held down by Tobin and a few others and shoots Pete in the head without any hesitation. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: This IS a Character Insert Series Rewrite so this WILL contain spoilers for the show. ALL Major Character deaths will not be changed!

Gloria and Gena were walking Deanna back to her house. Daryl and Aaron had come back from their run and had brought back a man named Morgan. The three were helping Rick and Spencer with Pete and Reg’s corpses. When the women reach the bottom steps of Deanna’s porch, she turns around and gently grabs Gloria’s hand that was red with Reg’s blood, a tearful smile on her face.

“Thank you for trying to save Reg.” she says through her tears.

Gloria frowns and shakes her head, “I… I didn’t do enough…”

“You tried. And that’s what matters. I already knew Pete had cut him too deep, but you were the only one who tried to save him and for that, I’m forever grateful.” Deanna smiles sadly at her.

Gloria sighs, “I’m sorry for what happened.” 

Deanna forces a smile on her face and nods, she then proceeds to go into her house. Gena looks at Gloria and nods.

“I’ll take care of her, you go.” Gena says as she turns to follow Deanna but then stops in her steps and glances back at Gloria, “you did good today.” 

Gena’s words take her by surprise, she never compliments her or tells her that she’s done a good job with anything. Why today? Gloria just nods, not knowing how to respond and Gena goes on her way into the Monroe house. Gloria goes straight to the bathroom once she gets to her house and turns the taps on the sink. She looks at her bloodied hands, letting out a heavy sigh. She squeezes her eyes shut but opens them again immediately as the only thing she can see is the image of Reg’s lifeless eyes staring at her. Her chest heaves as she breathes heavily, looking at herself in the mirror, her face was already drenched with tears she didn’t even know had fallen. Gloria stumbles backwards and sits on the ledge of the bathtub. Her heavy breathing as she stares at nothing is accompanied by the sounds of running water. 

Moments later, the front door of the house opens and closes. Footsteps approach in the hallway and Daryl appears in the doorway of the bathroom. His lips pursed together as he looks at Gloria who doesn’t even seem to notice that he is in the house. He sighs as he sees her bloody hands, realizing that she was having another breakdown. Daryl makes his way to her, kneeling beside her and wiping her tears with his thumb.

“Hey.” he calls out to her in a gentle voice. 

With no response, he gets up to get a towel from the rack, wetting it in the sink and turning off the water. Daryl kneels back down beside her and starts wiping down her hands of the blood. 

“I couldn’t save him.” she says in barely a whisper.

“Ya can’t save ‘em all.” he tells her as he cleans her up, “from what I saw, the cut was too deep, there was nothin’ ya coulda done.”

She sniffles, “I hate this feeling… I know it’s not my fault but I can’t help but feel like it is. There wasn’t anything else I could have done… but I always feel like I could have done something more…”

Daryl holds her hands once he’s done wiping up the blood, “ya did more than anyone else, they all saw that.”

Another tear rolls down her cheek, “that’s what Deanna said too…”

Daryl gets up and pulls her up from her seat on the ledge of the tub then leads her to their bedroom to get some rest. She doesn’t resist when he gently pulls her to the bed, snuggling up to him as she wraps her arms around his waist. He strokes her hair to soothe her as they lay there in silence. Neither of them were able to sleep due to the day’s events.

“We lost Noah and Aiden… Glenn said Nicholas got them killed.” Gloria says, her voice soft. 

Daryl swears under his breath, holding her closer to him, “‘s Glenn okay?”

“Yeah… just traumatized by it all… I don’t trust Nicholas…” she looks up at Daryl, “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

He nods and hums to comply, deciding not to retort that Nicholas can’t do anything to him. He just kisses her forehead for comfort.

“How’d your run with Aaron go?” Gloria asks.

“We found a guy but lost him, thought we found a warehouse full o’ food to bring back but it was jus’ a trap. Got locked in a car surrounded by walkers, honestly wasn’t sure if we were gonna make it back.” he sighs, “I was gonna distract the walkers so Aaron could get out.”

Gloria pushes herself up from Daryl’s embrace and frowns at him, “what?”

“I didn’ see any other way.” Daryl defends.

“You and Aaron make it out together, that’s the only way it should be!” she tells him, giving him a look of disapproval.

Daryl smiles a bit at that, “tha’s what Aaron said too.”

“How’d you two get out?” Gloria asks.

“Morgan. Apparently he knew Rick from before, he came by an’ saved us then we brought him back here.” Daryl informs her.

“I’ll have to thank him later.” she then eyes Daryl scoldingly, “never think of stupid ideas like that ever again, if you don’t come back, I’m going out there to find you and put a bolt in you with your own crossbow.”

Daryl chuckles and nods, “‘m sorry.”

As Gloria is about to respond to him, they both hear the door opening quickly and frantic footsteps as Maggie calls out for her. Gloria sits up when Maggie appears in the doorway of their room, tears in her eyes. 

“Maggie, what happened?” Gloria asks, worry in her voice. 

“Glenn… he’s hurt.” Maggie tells her.

Without another word, Gloria gets up from the bed and rushes out of the house with Maggie and Daryl towards the infirmary. They barge into the building and Gloria’s breath hitches when she sees Glenn laying on the bed, unconscious and pale. Denise cut open Glenn’s bloody shirt so that she had easier access to his wounds and was now steadily pressing thick layers of gauze on them, attempting to stop the bleeding. Rosita had hooked him up to the monitor and it showed that his vitals were low. Gloria frowns at the monitor then lets out a sigh as she starts to roll up her sleeve. 

“Denise, let me know when the bleeding stops,” Gloria tells her, she then turns to Maggie and nods at her, “he’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

Maggie smiles tightly back at her and nods, “he will be.”

Gloria goes over to the supply cabinet and takes out a tourniquet, alcohol swabs and a transfusion tube set. As she collects the items she needs, the door to the infirmary barges open and Gena, Mindy, and Jacob rush in.

“Oh my god… Glenn!” Gena exclaims, rushing over to Glenn’s bedside, “what happened?”

“He got shot, it’s a through-and-through,” Rosita informs her, “but he lost a lot of blood.”

“I-is he gonna be okay?” Gena asks, she grabs onto Rosita’s arm, “please, save him!”

Gloria turns back to face Gena by Glenn’s bedside and lets out a breath before hesitantly stepping towards her with her equipment, “Gena, he’s gonna be okay, but I need you to step back, please.”

Gena turns to look at Gloria with a frown, “but-”

“You need to listen to her, Gena.” Rosita cuts her off, “Gloria has the most experience out of all of us, she knows what she’s doing.”

Her words cause Gena to sigh and then she nods, stepping back to stand beside Mindy and Jacob. Gloria nods at Rosita as a silent thank you then places the equipment on the medical tray by the bed. 

“How is it, Denise?” Gloria asks. 

“Good, I think it stopped,” Denise smiles at her reassuringly then looks back down at Glenn, “I’m gonna wrap up his wound now.”

“Okay, good, Rosita, tie this around my arm,” Gloria tells her as she extends her arm.

“And what exactly are you doing?” Mindy asks. 

“He needs blood, so I’m giving it to him,” Gloria says simply. 

“Let me,” Gena steps up.

“No,” Gloria says immediately, “you can’t.”

“Yes, I can! I can handle it!” Gena raises her voice, frustrated.

“Glenn and I are the same blood type, you’re not,” Gloria argues.

“I’m a universal donor, Gloria,” Gena says.

“No, you’re not, that’s O negative. You’re O positive, I give him any of your blood and he’ll be dead in minutes, so step back,” Gloria tells her then she sighs, “look, you chose your family and I already came to terms that I’m not a part of that, but you have to accept that Glenn is **my** family. So **sit** down and let me save our brother.”

Gloria’s words cause Gena to falter and she sighs, stepping back again. Rosita had tied the tourniquet around Gloria’s arm just below her elbow and also cleaned the area with the alcohol swab. As she swabs Glenn’s arm, Gloria takes one end of the tube and carefully pierces into her artery. Rosita helps with doing the same with Glenn’s vein and she looks at Gloria when she’s done, nodding at her. Gloria lets out a breath then pulls the tourniquet, releasing it from her arm and letting blood flow into the tube to Glenn’s arm. 

“Keep an eye on his vitals,” Gloria tells Rosita as she makes sure the blood flow in the tube is steady. 

“Okay,” Rosita nods, glancing at her then back at the monitor, “you should sit, you’re gonna feel light headed soon.”

Gloria chuckles at that, “yeah… you’re probably right.”

“Here,” Rosita says, pulling up a chair for her then goes back to analysing the monitor. 

After around fifteen minutes of intense silence in the infirmary, Rosita gently nudges Gloria then looks back at Maggie, “he’s stable.”

They all collectively let out a sigh of relief at her words. Rosita steps back while Denise goes to check on Tara who had woken up. Maggie goes to sit on the side of the bed just beside Glenn as she thanks Rosita for helping. 

“I’d leave you two alone but I’m kinda still connected to him,” Gloria jokes, making Maggie chuckle.

“Gloria… I’m sorry… I didn’t want you to see him like this, but I didn’t know what else to do…” Maggie says. 

“Don’t, we already went through this. We’re here for each other, that’s how it is and that’s how it’s always gonna be,” Gloria smiles warmly at her, “now let’s wait for this dumbass to wake up so I can find out who the hell shot my brother.”

Maggie chuckles at her words and nods, then gently holds Gloria’s hand. Glenn’s complexion had returned back to normal after close to an hour and it’s only then that Gloria was willing to stop the transfusion, much to Daryl’s relief as she was now turning pale. Gena had stayed in the infirmary with Mindy and Jacob by her side, waiting for Glenn to wake up. Maggie stays seated by Glenn’s side with Gloria as Daryl had gone out to get her some food and water to make sure she doesn’t pass out. It wasn’t long after Daryl had left the infirmary that Glenn’s eyes began to slowly flutter open. He catches their attention as he groans in pain from the soreness of his wound. They allow him to settle in first so not to be overwhelmed by the amount of people crowding his bed. Carefully, he sits up on the bed, leaning his back on the headboard. 

Glenn lets out a breath then his eyes fall on the bandaid with a cotton ball underneath it on Gloria’s arm, he chuckles softly, “you gave me blood, like you said you would when we were kids.”

She chuckles and nods, “I’m your designated blood donor.”

“You owe her a lot now, she saved your life with her own blood,” Maggie smiles at him.

Just then, Daryl returns to the infirmary, a small smile on his face when he sees Glenn awake, the two nod at each other in acknowledgement. 

“Glad you’re okay, man,” he says as he gives Gloria a bottle of water and an apple. 

“I’m glad, too,” Glenn chuckles. 

“Glenn,” Gena speaks up as she steps towards the bed, “what happened? How did you get hurt?”

The question is on the back of everyone’s minds, and they all look at Glenn in worry and curiosity. He sighs and purses his lips before speaking. 

“It was Nicholas. I was going to go to the meeting, but I saw him go out there, so I followed him…” he sighs, “he lured me out there with a gun and tried to kill me.”

“But… Nicholas would never do that, why would he do that?” Jacob says in disbelief. 

“Because I called him out on his bullshit,” Glenn says straightforwardly. 

“He was the one who told us you were hurt,” Mindy chimes in, “why would he do that if he was the one who hurt you?”

“Ya callin’ Glenn a liar, now?” Daryl scoffs at them.

“Hey, don’t talk to my sister like that,” Jacob steps in front of Mindy.

“Where is he?” Gloria says suddenly, anger in her voice, cutting off any argument that was brewing.

“I… don’t know, his house, probably?” Jacob stutters as he’s never seen Gloria so angry before. 

Without another word, Gloria gets up from her seat but she doesn’t get very far as she gets dizzy from just standing. From the amount of blood she gave to Glenn earlier, she was still a bit weary. 

“Woah woah woah, slow down,” Daryl says, his voice gentle as he catches her, holding her up, “ya a’right?”

Gloria nods, her eyes closed as she tries to wait out her head rush. Daryl guides her to sit back down on the chair, patting her shoulder to keep her seated. She opens her eyes slowly and lets out a deep breath as she adjusts herself. 

“I’m okay… I’m fine,” she says to reassure everyone. 

“If he tried to kill you, why would he bring you back?” Maggie questions, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Because I fought back,” Glenn tells them, “after he shot me, I took him down, almost put a bullet in his head, scared him into coming back here… and I guess along the way, I passed out. I’m surprised he didn’t just leave me out there.”

“He brought you back… even when you were out cold, that might mean he actually learned something out there,” Maggie says.

“Yeah… maybe there’s hope for these people after all,” Daryl mutters. 

Glenn nods then looks up at everyone, “so, what happened at the meeting?”

“Why was there a meetin’ in the first place?” Daryl asks as he was still on his run with Aaron when everything happened. 

“Rick found out Pete was beating his wife and kids, he confronted him and they fought. Rick drew a gun he wasn’t supposed to have and Michonne knocked him out,” Maggie explains, “Deanna wanted to hold a meeting to discuss the situation.” 

“We all said our pieces,” Gloria says, then she eyes Glenn, “you were supposed to speak for me.”

“Hey, I was busy getting shot,” Glenn jokes. 

“But she did well,” Gena says suddenly, surprising Gloria as she turns to look at her older sister, “I’ve never seen or heard you speak like that before, I was actually impressed.” 

Glenn smiles at this as Gloria blinks at her words, “okay… how much blood did I actually give because I think I’m hearing things…”

“You’re not,” Gena smiles genuinely at her, “after your speech, I was going to speak up and tell them all to give Rick another chance, but… I never got a chance to.”

“Why? What happened?” Glenn frowns, confused.

“Rick came, and then Pete…” Gloria sighs, “Pete killed Reg… Then Rick killed Pete.” 

“What?” Glenn can’t find any other words to say.

“Pete was only going to get worse and Deanna had to learn it the hard way that Rick was right about him,” Gloria sighs.

“Yeah…” Daryl nods, “at least these people ’re startin’ to learn.”

“We are.” Gena says, looking at Mindy and Jacob then back at the others, “we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the end of Season 5! The first chapter of Season 6 will be up next Monday in another part of my on-going series of Fated!
> 
> Thank you all so much for your support, it really means a lot to me, you're all so lovely and amazing!!! ❤❤❤❤❤


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